I received this message this week:

Hey guys,

I don’t know if you have heard already through the grape vine but you are in the top 50 bike blogs as rated through looking at things such as number of comments, alexa rank, etc. Congratulations!

I look forward to hearing more from you in future.
Andreas
(londoncyclist)

Ain’t that cool? Thanks for everyone’s support!

Jason sez: Bob Anderson is a one-man hurricane on the Albany cycling scene. He’s doing great work with the Albany Bicycle Coalition, and also taking amazing photos of cycling culture for local galleries, and for his blog, Liberty on Bikes! Bob’s inclusion on the Team RocBike roster is long overdue, and I’m glad he’s here. Under the photo is Bob’s sketch of his own biography.

married almost 11 years, 3 kids from 3-8, commute everyday by bike, born in Seattle, lived in golden, colorado & salt lake city, utah, here for 11 years, manager by profession, also a photographer, artist, decorator, manipulator of color/pattern/texture, punk, instigator, prankster, tattoo collector, 80′s trivia master, student of taoism, and agent of chaos.

Jason sez: Look for posts from Ethan very soon! Glad to have you, man!

Ethan Georgi is a 30-nothing web developer living in Albany, NY. He bikes 3 miles to work, just off Pearl St, on a Trek 4500 Alpha he has had since 2001. He loves his “fifty three miles per burrito” sticker.

I’m working on some fancy new features on this site. Currently I’m doing a roll-out of new post author icons. These are subject to change if the subject doesn’t like their photo:

Richard’s interest in bicycling began in the early 1970s when he started commuting and founded a Rochester sporting goods store that specialized in bicycles. He has served on several boards and committees related to bicycling since 1990 as a bicycle advocate for road cycling.

In 1990 with the Rochester Bicycling Club he started as a ride leader and Board Publicity Chairman. He has held nearly very position on the Board from President on down. Currently he serves as the club’s Road and Trail Advocate.

In 1993 he was certified as an Effective Cycling Instructor by the League of American Bicyclist and is a citizen’s bicycle advisor with the local Metropolitan Planning Organization, Genesee Transportation Council. He is a current board member of the New York Bicycle Coalition.

Since 1990 he has been on the Steering Committee for the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Bicycle Tour which has raised millions of dollars to fight MS.

He has been in charge of production of several brochures and maps for many trail and bicycle organizations in the Rochester/Genesee Valley Region.

Contact Richard via e-mail at rdsbike@rochester.rr.com.

I’m getting ready to roll the content of Fort Orange Cycling back into the main RocBike.com site. Our Web wrangler, Adam Durand, is working on some new tagging features that will help us identify content by geographic area. I’m also working on setting up multiple events calendars so each region will have one. (Although it may prove easier to have one calendar and tag the events with the city/region name.)

In any case, please bookmark RocBike.com and make it part of your daily bike reading. Thanks!

P.S. — We’re looking for new members of Team RocBike who want to contribute stories about cycling for transportation and recreation in New York State. Are YOU the next team member?

I’m now contributing to the cycling blog Veloquent, run by Kent from Kent’s Bike Blog. If you’ve got a little free time, check out my first post.

I’m now contributing to the cycling blog Veloquent, run by Kent from Kent’s Bike Blog. If you’ve got a little free time, check out my first post.

Now that I’m living and cycling in Albany, I’ve started another blog: FortOrangeCycling.com. “Fort Orange” was Albany’s name when it was still a Dutch settlement. At the moment, the site looks exactly like this one, and I’m going to keep it visually similar so that it becomes part of the fledgling “RocBike Network.” (Joey, you have your mission in CT, too!) Soon enough, the talented Mr. Durand is going to snazz up the logo and colors.

I’ll be cross-posting the Links of the Day at both sites. If you’re in the Capital District and you’d like to become a member of the Fort Orange Crew, or if you’d like to start up your own local site and join the RocBike Network, let me know.

Meanwhile, the excellent Team RocBike here in Rochester is continuing to provide great content about Rochester’s cycling scene. They can always use more contributors, so hop on the bandwagon!

See you over at FortOrangeCycling.com, and right here at RocBike.com!

Welcome to Fort Orange Cycling. If you’re a regular RocBike reader, you’ll feel right at home here. The idea is the same, just the geography is different. I’m now living in Albany, a few minutes outside of downtown, in the Pine Hills neighborhood. I got transferred to the Capital District a few years months ago, but I’ve barely been on a bike since then. Now that I’m living downtown, I hope to be riding just about every day.

I’m writing this in a Starbucks on New Scotland Avenue, in the shadow of the Albany Medical Center. I had to come here and pay for Internet access because I don’t yet have access at my apartment, and I don’t yet know where any free wi-fi is located around here.

I came here on the Packet Boat (Xtracycle), on its maiden voyage through Albany. It was a fun ride — even with the cold and the occasional snowy mist. So much of downtown Albany looks like it came straight out of the colonial era. You really get to feel like part of the architecture as you ride down brick and cobblestone streets past Dutch-style homes and Brooklynesque brownstones.

I’m proud to report that I’ve succeeded in gaining back nearly every pound I lost since January 2007. I was down about 25 pounds on the year, and I packed it all back on in about a month of driving (read: no biking) and bad eating (read: not eating at home). I started working out again a few weeks ago, and I’m trying to get a handle on the eating, too. Now if I can just start riding regularly, I should be able to repeat my earlier success.

I’m going to cross-post the Links of the Day here and at RocBike.com.

As I did in Rochester, I’ll be looking to add new members to the Fort Orange Crew. If you’d like to write about cycling in and around Albany, let me know.

The lovely Adam Durand will also be contributing some graphics. The site will be visually linked to RocBike — part of the expanding RocBike Network.

And now … back on the bike!