mev

That is either a bug or a feature of CGOAB vs. the other methods...

In general, FB and Instagram give you some control over who sees your pictures/posts. For example, if you want to share your photos/videos with people you approve then you typically mark it as "private" and those accounts can see them but others can not (unless you approve them). Social media sites like Facebook or Instagram give you that control as does setting up permissions in Wordpress

There might be a way to do this with CGOAB - but I am not familiar with it. I can mark something as a "draft" and have only myself be able to see it until it is ready to go - but that isn't quite the same as letting my Uncle Mark and Aunt Jenny follow my trip but not a random stranger on the internet to stumble into my videos (unless they trick me into approving them).

mev

The 2021 crew was more terse than before - and 2022 group also seems to have borrowed this by posting a few photos without as much text.

However, you can see a bit of the general pattern by clicking on some of the bio pictures. What you'll see is a mixture of caption/text each person has added (to varying degree) along with a right arrow that lets you thumb through a set of photos they've added behind the original photo.

It is image-centric in creating an overall collage and then using those photos to jump into a specific combination of text/images behind it. Rather than more of a "blog post" centric approach that I see more in Facebook or common configurations of platforms like Wordpress (through you can customize wordpress in quite a few ways...)

bobh123

I have the same interest, and lack of interest in Facebook. I'd like something simple and brief to let my family and friends know roughly where we are and that we are still moving. I've tentatively settled on using trackmytour. It's an iOS app. You can easily post a short report or message and a couple of photos, and that's it. It's not intended to be a comprehensive journal. I think it will suit my needs.

Tourist in MSN

Documenting trips, I usually send out an e-mail to friends and family about one to three months after a trip. But no formal publication for others to see.

Actually I usually send three e-mails, limit each e-mail to ten photos. The photos I attach are photo reduced at 20 percent. Some friends and family have stringent e-mail systems for electronic size of e-mail, thus 20 percent photo reduction and a max of ten seems to work for everybodies e-mail systems. Three e-mails with a total of 30 photos is usually about right.

Use blind CC so the relatives and neighbors do not wonder who all those other people are. This way in a private e-mail I feel more comfortable about sending photos of people I met, I would not want to put photos on the internet in case the people in the photo had not given permission. I have cropped out faces occasionally of people where I had a reason to post a photo of someone on this forum.

Some of you may recall seeing a canoe or kayak or backpacking trip photo in some of my posts, that is one advantage of using an e-mail to a select group, it is not activity specific, like cycling would be. I would not feel right about posting a trip log for a canoe trip on Crazy Guy on a Bike, that is not the purpose of that site. And if it was a lousy trip, I skip the e-mail for that trip.

phughes

There no real issue. The only issues I have seen in the 15 or so years I've been on the site, is overbearing people actually trying to make issues. They post in appropriate political statements in their posts, they get all hurt when someone disagrees with them. Keep your posts to the subject of bicycles and touring and you will have no issues.

NeilGunton

Removed by author

indyfabz

That's what I really like about it too. It's also very handy when doing research. A couple of times I have found daily reports about very days I was considering incorporating into a tour I was planning.

NeilGunton

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gauvins

Useful feature:
. visual searching (i.e. display journals on a map. Either locations or routes).
. try to pull meta data (ex: difficulty, duration, surfaces)

More generally : I've never consumed CGOAB's content other than journals. I'd be curious as to how much traffic is generated by journals vs other types of content. Personally, I'd like a leaner interface, focusing on journals, the idea being to find sources of inspiration and, to some extent, assist in tour planning

NeilGunton

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Tourist in MSN

And I want to thank you for that. Again.

Seven years ago on another thread where someone was disparaging the Americano, the first time I thanked you for hosting your site was in that post (it took me a few minutes to find it with the help of Google):

If anyone is curious that post was from:
https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/9...l#post17677232

Have a good day everyone.

suds

I've seen some neat ride recaps done via the Relive app.
www relive.cc

NeilGunton

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gauvins

No. And too bad, because your map display is fantastic (perhaps adding a date filter would be useful.

My usage pattern is to type a place name in the search box (ex: Seoul). The map browser is much better (i.e. I'd probably not type Incheon, while it is arguably a more relevant query)

Perhaps working on a leaner (journal) interface might be worth considering. In its current form, the landing page is a bit overwhelming.

NeilGunton

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gauvins

Very true, with the added problem that those who complain are (current) users that liked the (previous) interface. You won't hear from those that just left because they were confused.

One more thing: mapping is an intriguing tool. Even though routes are not explicitly traced, it is easy to guess several of them. (ex: Eurovelo 6 is easy to locate; One route crossed Mongolia, etc.) Makes it possible to estimate how popular a given route is (or perhaps how verbose tourers are, as a function of where they ride...)

Is there an efficient way to access pictures related to a specific point?

(I am also very impressed by those who've crossed oceans on their bikes )

NeilGunton

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Tourist in MSN

I intentionally left the GPS on when I took the ferry from Key West to Marco Island.



But, I doubt you were fooled.

And left the GPS on when I took the ferry from Nova Scotia to PEI, and also again when the shuttle took me across the Confederation Bridge from PEI to New Brunswick. I doubt if that fooled you too.



These were not posted from Crazy Guy, they are from my hard drive.

veganbikes

What I was just quoting my favorite 80s song by Sir Richard Astley, don't tell me people are using it for nefarious purposes? Shame on them.

If there is anything you need, all you have to do is say so!

indyfabz

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kittykn...h=3e54c3582ff2

veganbikes

My stars! Someone would use such a classic song to do such a thing...what next are you going to tell me some nazis are going take over a cute little internet cartoon frog for their evil purposes?

John N

I got banned with no warning for simply clicking "Agree" to this sentence "People increasingly avoid the forums because a troll constantly injects political conspiracy theories no matter what topic is being discussed". I clicked agree because the forums had become very political, not necessarily conspiratorial, but definitely political. More than 36 hours later and a handful of posts by Neil later, Neil decided that he had been severely insulted for being called a troll and banned all those who agreed with that person's sentence from posting on the Forums (but not the rest of CGOAB) even though the troll part never mentioned Neil personally or implied it was him who did it. Neil believed that if you clicked "Agree" to that sentence that in his mind that meant "you must really kind of hate my guts" even though that was/is not the case. I personally clicked agree just because of the politics frequently being injected to the forums and got banned as a result.

Read https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/foru...id=894845&v=4W and review Posts #7, 32, & 33 to see the related posts.

I do support Neil's right to rant continually (even if I didn't always agree with him) and even the right to ban people from his website as it is his website. I just think he is a horrible admin for the forums as he takes way too much stuff personally even though it is not about him and makes the site too much about him and his life. But it was his being so thin skinned and whiny and being crapped on by him and his threats that caused me to just deleted my account and be done with him. I am not the only one who was banned or left as you can review the older posts and see tons of "deleted" or non-hyperlinked names. All those people were banned or deleted their accounts and left the site. I strongly suggest you do not post to the CGOAB forums (though I do lurk) because of Neil's thin skin but more importantly because CGOAB forums are no longer relevant. They get maybe two or three posts (posts, not threads) a day on average if that. Heck, even ACA has more daily posts than CGOAB and it is mainly focused on ACA routes or routes connecting to them. This site (Bike Forums) has the most interaction and the most diverse topics by far, at least in the USA. You may think I am against Neil but I am not. I just pity him and feel bad for the cycling community that he has caused his website to go so downhill.

I do agree that CGOAB is currently one of the better places to post a journal. CycleBlaze is another and looks much better though the search function of CycleBlaze is not as good as CGOAB which unfortunately took a major dive in ease of use with its new "updated" format. Another thing to consider when posting a journal to CGOAB is that Neil is the sole operator of the website which he built using his own personal computer code and he does not appear to have any sort of contingency plan for others to keep the site running in case he dies unexpectedly (hopefully not) or closes it due to the ongoing costs. For years he has continually bemoaned his financial situation about going more and more into debt and now it seems it is to the point it is now affecting the website such cutting on backup servers. At this rate, I would not be surprised to see CGOAB close down in a few years. Obviously, this could happen to any journal hosting site so be sure to keep a full off-site backup of your journal for when it happens. I am pretty sure you can do that on CGOAB but unsure of the others. I also believe it may be possible that you can export/import your journal from CGOAB into CycleBlaze if you want to have multiple journal sites.

Finally, if you do post a journal at CGOAB or CycleBlaze, considering donating to that website as it does cost money to operate it.

staehpj1

Neil does make it easy to save a full backup of all your journals. The backups are in a format that isn't exactly in the format I would want for my own website, but it is all there and you wouldn't lose anything but maybe some time massaging it back into a form you wanted. Not sure how it would import into cycleblaze or whatever (never used it). I don't know if Neil has a plan for anyone taking over after his retirement or demise. That can be an issue for any site, perhaps it is more so for his since cgoab seems to be a one man show, but it will be a concern to some extent where ever you post stuff if you expect stuff to be around long term.

Yeah, that just seems fair.

FWIW, I was surprised to read that the cgoab forums were so lightly used these days. They used to seem pretty busy, but I haven't hung out there in a long time so I wouldn't know.

Oh, one thing that I don't think was mentioned. A lot of ways of documenting wind up in revere chronological order. A cgoab journal is in chronological order. To me the format makes more sense for a trip journal. It looks like CycleBlaze does the same thing though. The two have a very different look and feel so you likely will prefer one over the other based on that. CGOAB is a lot more data oriented putting daily mileage and so on very visible. I like that others may not care. All that is based on a brief glance at CycleBlaze as I have not actually used it or even read there other than to briefly check it out.

NeilGunton

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indyfabz

Buh-bye.