Archive for November, 2007

30
Nov

a good climb?

these guys have game, for sure. i dig the smack-down sounds of them floggin’ their bikes. i’d be stoked to take a crack at riding something like that, maybe try going up them on my single speed. i’m no good at big air though, probably end up lawn darting over a cliff if i tried to descend

28
Nov

The sizzle behind the strip

What is the point of TBS? What is TBS? and Who reads TBS? Well, let’s use some cool web 2.0 tools to figure that out.

Answers:
1) Isn’t it obvious?
2) See answer to ? 1.
3) Here is where I have something to say.

Using Google ANALytics to Read The Bacon Strip

BeerGoggles
Google Analytics tracks this data for us via a wordpress plugin that adds the tracking code to each page.
• 2,596 visits from only 920 Absolute Unique Visitors since I started tracking it in October.
• 5,936 total page views.
• Of those visits: 1,678 are returning visitors and 921 are new.
• Most visitors are from the US, but we have hits in Chile (thanks Pyro!), Brazil, Spain, France, Morocco, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Japan (Angry Bee), India, Indonesia, New Zealand and more.
• We have visits from every US State EXCEPT: West Virginia, Mississippi, S. Dakota and Vermont. Most are from CA and NV.
• Most use Internet Explorer on Windows, Second is Firefox on Windows.
• Traffic comes mostly from referring sites and the big ones are the old wordpress.com blog, iamindisposed.com, dhreno.com, Drunk Cyclist, Bloglines, Stable at Speed, Nevada Girl’s World, and Google search.
Bounce rate is 56% so we do an ok job of holding interest and encouraging those visitors, who stay an average of 3:15, to read more than one page.
• Mexican’s love Bacon more than any other country, devouring 6 pages per visit! This is truly the blog of opportunity for our brothers to the south!!!! To our Mexican readers I’d like to say, “Amantes queridos del tocino de México. La tira de tocino del equipo hace una oferta le agradable, la fraternidad y muchos días grueling largos de la diversión seguidos por la cerveza fría y la carne caliente. Viva la PUERCA!!!!”

Visitor Loyalty to Bacon

Here’s where it get’s interesting:
• 35% visit once and never come back.
• 33.37% visit between 9 and 100 times.
• The rest is somewhere in between…

SO, since 1,261 of the total visits came from Reno, Nevada, there are a lot of people in Reno who visit a lot and some people in the rest of the world who are mildly to tangentially interested in what we do.

In short, this is a local blog about, by, for, among and towards local friends and acquaintances that other people all around the world may or may not find interesting. My hope is that other people WILL find it interesting and choose to interact and make TBS inclusive, interactive and more interesting.

Good adventure and good content come from new ideas, stories and perspectives. In a Web 2.0, New Media, Social Marketing world this is how passion is spread. Kind of like butter on a crispy English muffin right next to a pile of crispy bacon… (did that sound dirty?) (yes, I did stick those words in just for searchbaiting.)

TBS is run on open sourced Wordpress software, with the Redoable Theme by Dean Robinson, modified by me, hosted on my DreamHost account with a domain registered by me. Japhy Rider and I have access to the Google Analytics, but if any TBSer wants to see it I can add you on. LMK.

We have 14 contributors and want to have and hear more voices from the Team.

Any other questions? Please post a comment or use the contact form.

-M

28
Nov

sick, sick, super fit

for those of you familiar with The Birthday Challenge, you’ll most likely recognize Steve.  though he’d sworn off any more Challenges, fate had him plotting and marauding a Birthday Sanction for his 47th:

47 rock climbs, on sight
47 miles of on sight single track on a rigid single speed
47 miles of road on a fixie
47 kilometers of running

that soldier’s fitness is off the hook, as was the commitment to the Sanction

“Want a beer?” said Bob
“If you hauled beer out here, you’re crazier than I thought,” I answered.
“I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid. I didn’t haul it out here, you did. It’s in your pack.”
“I oughtta throw you off this rock.”

http://steveedwardschallenge2007.blogspot.com/

26
Nov

Wings of Bacon

This is probably the best way to squeeze your adrenaline glands dry. The only thing that’s holding me back from trying it is that I think I would find all my favorite sports too boring to bother with after a session of terrain/proximity flying in a wingsuit.

26
Nov

beer goggles & more cross fun - SBTS style

beer goggles!

one of my committee members, yep, he’s a Doktor, forwarded me this link… i think it’s almost Tuesday. anyone up for holding council over a $2 pints?

the good folks at the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship are looking to get a fun cross event going up the foothills. Dec 7 and 8 are races near Bullards Bar, to be followed by a Trail Daze event.  i know about as much about cyclocross as i do about off-road unis, but i do know the SBTS crew puts on a mean event, likes beer, and rides hard and loves their trails.  here’s a link to their page

well, i really really really hope this dry fall/preseason is about to get snowed out. i used to spend the weekend after Thanksgiving skiing, or climbing. this year it was trail riding. this Turkey Day Huck T, Oso, and I got in a nice ride up on Peavine - aside from being ambushed by shooters. on Friday, the Shredder, Oso and I hit up FS73 from Tahoe City to the TRT and back south past Painted Rock and the shale and “basket ball sized rocks” back to the trailhead. it was so nice. everyone we met was pleasant. that almost never happens near Galena. Saturday, HT and Shredder, Oso, and I hit some more TRT from the Meadows to the south and back. it was scary warm, beautiful, and very quiet. i finally realized the uncanny silence was mostly just the lack of motorboats out on Tahoe. absurd how those things can effect such a large airshed. finally, yesterday, after some dorking around with work stuff, I split for a solo single ride up Keystone, up TBS, down towards the Luge but veered south on the bonus loop (which shreds!!!) and back to the hippy cairn and on down to the top of the N trail and left into Evans. i finished that ride up with the new connector from Evans to Keystone, which was pleasant. Dale and a few other fellas were out working on the bit of trail west of Keystone. cheers to you guys. good work. thumbs up.

happy Monday,

Japhy rider

24
Nov

The worst that could happen

I was thinking about that skiBASE jump I witnessed the other day and morbidly fascinating about plummeting to death at the bottom of the Silver Legacy. But that’s the worst case scenario there. Maybe the absolute worst is that you crash into a spectator and take him/her out too. That would be bad. Still the probable outcomes are such that Shane McConley et. al. still go for stuff like that because the general consequences are limited. That’s pretty much the same reason any of us do any of the seemingly risky things we do from hitting the jump @ the Radio towers to dropping a chute we know could avalanche.

Here’s a little video that illustrates that kind of thinking on, let’s say, a GLOBAL scale…

-M

19
Nov

Urban skiBASE jumping in Reno, NV

You all wish you lived here…

Shane McConkey

That’s right. I was not only there, but right there on the roof! Being behind a camera looking over the edge was almost like being the first wako to skiBASE of a building in a dense urban area. But not quite.

Shane McConkey, JT Holmes, Jesse Hall, and Miles (lightning bolt sideburns) Daisher are all hereby invited to be on Team Bacon Strip!

These guys might look nuts, but were way careful. Shane (McfreakingConkey) packed and repacked the ramp and tested the speed of it numerous times before the jumps. Everything went well, even after Jesse Hall’s minor mishap with getting his ski tangled after his double flip. You got to push the boundaries, it’s not like they gonna push themselves…

Shane checking the ramp

Here’s Jesse pulling flip one of two. Not sure what happened. Perhaps he over rotated after the chute opened. Either way, It was WAY freaky watching him careen OOC around the corner of the Silver Legacy out of sight and hear the loud clack of him hitting down. A few minutes later we heard cheers, and got twitters and phone calls and txt messages that he was OK.

Jesse Hall Double flip skiBASE

All in all a SWEET event to benefit the Make A Wish Foundation, which helps make wishes come true for seriously ill children.

See more and read more @ the Visit Reno Tahoe Blog

-M

Photo 1 by Wolfy
Video by Dan Dominy w/ music by Sol Jibe
Photos 2 and 3 by Scott Sady

16
Nov

Shane Mc(freaking)Conkey is coming to town…

Who else would hit this?

Tell you what, I want to start a carpentry company building kickass ramps into oblivion. That would be the ticket!

More vids and info @ bobo’s, RSCVA, and YouTube.

-M

11
Nov

Weekend Wrap-up

Good Weekend! Did some Geocaching, some movie watching, some beer sports and some bike riding.

GrislyBikeGeek

There’s Gris crossing things up in Genoa. Woot Wooot!!! (photo courtesey of Keith and Jhanna)

IMG_2468

There’s me pimping Reno Bike Project memberships @ the Second Annual Bike-Out or Strike-Out. (Photo by PFE) A $20 dollar suggested donation gets you 10% off parts and supplies plus $2 per hour shop usage (we have a bottom bracket Chase-and-Face tool) and the deep warming satisfaction of helping support the transportation needs of the community and promote healthy and sustainable lifestyles.

What did YOU do and where are YOUR pictures?!?!?!?!

-M

ps I think you CAN post pics in the comments, just use the html img tag.

09
Nov

del.icio.us ba.con for November 6th through November 9th

Sizzling hot bacon for November 6th through November 9th:




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