by aloshbennett

So Cateye has a new product called Cateye Commute. Its a cyclometer that helps you measure your ‘Greenness’ and stuff and it sounds pretty cool. You can read the Wired review of the Cateye Commuter here. I am more interested in the social network that they built to go along with this device – WorldCommute.com.

The basic concept is not new, there are a number of excercise and carbon offset tracking websites out there. However this one seems to combine them both and acts like a Nike+ for bikes. Unfortunately it is not going anywhere.

There are a few basic reasons for this:

• Publicity
• Networking

Publicity – External and Internal

No one is talking about this site. How do I know this? Yahoo is currently showing 7,000 backlinks. That is sad. Whats worse is that the top result on Yahoo’s list is cateye.com. In voodoo SEO terms this means the strongest link Cateye is getting for their Social Network is from Cateye. Nice outreach. For a topic this hot there is no reason they shouldn’t have government and educational sites linking to them as a way to take resposibility for your energy use. Send Obama a computer and get him to blog about it on the Whitehouse blog or something…

How commited is Cateye to this project? From looking at the Cateye website and its lack of a mention or link to worldcommute.com I would say not very.  Currently a search for “site:cateye.com world commute” gives a total of 7 results, on a site with over 1400 pages. The product page for the Cateye Commuter has no link to worldcommute.com. (As a side note there is no link to a Youtube video of how to install the Cateye Commute Cyclometer, or how to use it.)

Networking – As in Social

Cateye knows about Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, but for some reason it doesn’t want to connect its own Social Network to them. This is perplexing to say the least. Considering the Privacy issues that they bring up during signup, I really don’t want to give you my birthdate, it makes sense to take advantage of the info that people have already given to their existing networks. Also its a pain in the ass to send an individual invite to each of my friends to get them to join me at WorldCommute.com. With all the latest stuff going on at Facebook and connecting sites together this is a major mistake.

Is there a way to sync the info from the Cateye Commute to my computer for upload to worldcommute.com? I assume no as there is no mention of this on the product page. This is a big miss as well considering the rise in various tracking methods on iPhones and Blackberries like Nike+ and AllSport GPS.

Conclusion

Cateye is taking a good direction here in terms of broadening their audience and message but in the end no one is going to use worldcommute.com as it is currently setup. There are 105 groups on the site but each one that I scanned over had less than 5 members. Cateye can make this a success if it can link their Cateye Commute Cyclometer to the site and connect worldcommute.com to the rest of the internet better. If you are running the show at Cateye I would love to talk further on this and help make it a success in exchange for some cash.

Oh boy this looks crazy and fun and crazy, who is game?

PMBC – Phoenix Metro Bicycle Club: Answer to the Challenge.

Well this Flip comes in handy so I don’t have to bore myself with writing as much. Now I can just bore you by talking, hahahah…

Here are some photos of the Moab Slickrock Trail ride. I will montage more later.

What an excellent morning for a ride. Low 80′s and clear skies. Didn’t wanna get out again after yesterdays pain locker but knew it was the best thing to do to get the legs stretched out. Besides I just feel better after a morning ride.

So I took it real easy and did 12 miles in 45 minutes heading down Alma School to Germann and back up Dobson. Nice and easy all the way.

Happy Tuesday!

One constant addiction I have held onto since being a child has been riding my bike. I still remember the first time my dad let go of the handle bars and I was flying, no training wheels, just me, my bike, and after 10 or 20 feet the ditch. Since then I have the same experience anytime I hop on a bike and push off the ground and fly. The same stupid grin comes over my face and a giggle lops itself out of my chest. I generally start off too quickly because I am addicted to acceleration and speed.

Today I got the chance to get back to being a child again and went riding with about 60 other grown kids known as the Phoenix Metro Bike Club. They ride every saturday and on Memorial Day and Labor Day they also get together and take over the Phoenix streets. Today we did the Mummy Mountain Loop and since it was my first ride over 20 miles in a few months I totally got my butt kicked. This course is about 40 miles long and gets a nice sampling of Tempe, Phoenix, and Scottsdale with tons of scenery and climbs for burning both legs and lungs.

In the end I wound up covering 56 Miles in 3 hours of riding time. Got home and spent the rest of the day taking it very easy.

All in all it was a great ride and I am looking forward to the one next Saturday when we head over to South Mountain and see what that communist playground is all about. Till then remember that Training time is Chamois time…

its been a while since I went out on a ride with the Phoenix Metro Bike Club. Tomorrow will be a fun ride starting from Kiwanis Park and making our way north into Phoenix, and Scottsdale around and through Mummy Mountain. I am looking forward to seeing the crew and enjoying some wind break in the middle of the pack.

If you ride 20 miles on your own enjoyably then you should come!

Some might think it dumb to bike in a monsoon, some would go further to say that said biker with a video camera in hand is even stupider. Well I got the shot BABY!

Taken while riding home from the studio, thinking some remix will come soon.

Trying something new with my cycling videos, last year it was all handheld so yesterday I tried mounting the camera. The results are above, let me know what you think. This was all shot with my Canon Powershot 550. Maybe someday I will get an actual video camera. I think a fisheye lense would be good for this type of thing.

This route goes south on Alma School to Ocotillo Rd and back up Dobson. Its just over 16 miles and takes me about an hour with a nice easy 15 min warmup and then a 10 minute cool down. Top speed today was 26MPH and I didn’t even go into the largest chain ring up front.

Its a good morning ride cause there isn’t a ton of traffic that early, the winds are generally blowing east to west, and the sun is mostly to the right or left. After the ride I am pretty much set on energy for the next two days, then I go on another ride and keep the cycle going.

E2 is a great PBS series on where things are headed for humans and how we are trying to live in better harmony with the planet Earth. Brad Pitt narrates it so its cool factor is up there. Add to this that all the shots are at least half out of focus and you have modern hipster all tied up.

The latest one covered Paris’ bicycling revolution with the “public-private Vélib’ bike initiative”. Its a pretty cool system where you are encouraged to make short, 30 minute or less, trips with public bikes. Read more here to get the details.

I really enjoyed this episode and wanted to share it with many people. The problem is that the only way to see it is to either have a TV or buy the episodes from iTunes or on DVD. I think this is very lame because the show is publicly and privately funded and is great public service information, which is to say that no one is going to buy it.
Maybe they need to cut their budget a bit: I am pretty sure you can get someone for less than Mr. Pitt goes for, and all the artsy editing and photography could be cut out.

I wrote PBS a message, you should too.

Oh and please RT this and please leave a comment below. This is your tax dollars, you should get to see what you already paid for.

Had a nice wake up call this week with my cholesterol test results. They are a bit high which I partially attribute to the orgy of fat I are over the Thanksgiving weekend. Nonetheless it is a serious issue and one I am not taking lightly. So I am going to get back into the serious cycling I was doing last spring.

First thing is that I needed a new training program. I want something simple but tough and most critically FREE. Its crazy how many people are trying to sell training programs online. Guess what? I aint buying your program. If I am going to pay you it will be to coach me, and I aint hiring you as a coach till I see your training program. So I found Jesper Therkildsen who writes Training4Cyclists.com and he has this 12 hour a week Training program which is just what the doctor ordered (man I crack myself up).

Yes a 3 hour ride is a long ride, but the better way to look at it is that you will get to see lots of country side. Now leaving the house at 5pm Dec 4th might seem suicidal but I have the fortune of living in Phoenix AZ and its in the 60′s here now. So besides rush hour traffic and a little darkness it is perfect riding conditions.

Then the sunset happened:

Then I got to Ahwatukee and entered Never Never Land:

After Ahwatukee I was heading home on Ray but realized I wasn’t going to hit my 3 hour mark so I doubled back to Kyrene and up to Guadalupe to get home in 3 hours and 47 miles covered:

Here is the route.