End Of The Year Questions: The Feedback Report

Friday I asked for feedback on a few ideas I had concerning "The Future" of the blog and a few ideas I had. Today I wanted to address that feedback in a post. I could have answered in the comments, but as you all know, I don't like doing that when the answers are more general, or about the blog, because then not many people will see those answers.

Okay, so with that let me dive into some thoughts I have after reading all of your comments. And before I get to that.......

Thank You!

I read every comment here and I appreciate all of you taking the time to make those comments. The readers here are why I have kept going for all these years now. It is very encouraging to hear from each of you when you take time and effort to comment.

• Miscellaneous Topics; I got a few comments I wanted to address here that were singular in nature and comments, quite frankly, I wasn't expecting. I wish I had the experiences, resources, and contacts to cover some of these important concepts that some of you brought up. The thing is, I don't want to cover anything as a topic unless I feel I can do it justice. Secondly, I also want to keep a focus on this blog. Getting broader in theme isn't conducive to my keeping that focus. However; when I get people involved, particularly with my other site, RidingGravel.com, I can use their expertise and contributions there. So, it isn't out of the realm of possibilities that some of these subjects that were proposed would be covered. They would probably not be covered by myself, and probably not here on this blog. A good example is John Ingham, who has contributed some fine work on the aging cyclist, health, and nutrition. (Plug his name in the search field on Riding Gravel and you'll find his articles.) I will keep those subjects in mind and if the opportunity arises to get a contribution to RidingGravel.com that covers those ideas, I will link those articles back here. 
• T-Shirts: I received some positive comments and at least one negative one concerning the t-shirt idea. I did not see any mandate to go ahead with that idea though. I may do something, but I may not since the idea wasn't enthusiastically received, in my view. But that said, don't be surprised someday if you see something here for sale. I've got some resources to do some art projects and t-shirts could be a part of that, but not necessarily t-shirts either. Stay tuned.......
• Trans Iowa Series: It was pretty clear that readers want to see this happen. I also want to do it. So, you can expect that to happen. Here's my thoughts. A rough sketch idea of what you can expect to see coming.......

First off, I don't think many of you quite understand that the "Touring Series" and this forthcoming Trans Iowa based series are inextricably linked. So, when the "Touring Series" ends, there will be a transitional post, maybe two or three, that bring you from August, 1995 to November, 2004 when Trans Iowa was born.

Expect these posts on Sundays. It was clear that this day seems to work for most of you.

The theme and tone of this series was indicated by your requests that I leave out the "technical" stuff which many of you said was not of interest to you at all. The "back story" was of interest. One of you said, quite rightly, that I have already covered a LOT of ground on Trans Iowa. (Just search "Ten Years Of Tales" on this blog, and you'll see what I mean.) So, not only did you want to read this series, you pretty much had a good idea of what you wanted too.

The "technical stuff" comments were curious to me. First of all, I am not sure what that means to you readers, exactly, and second of all, I don't think this would be interesting for me to dive into either. I don't want to pick on anyone here in particular, but I think one of you pretty much nailed what I feel this should be when you said to tell it," .......... how you would tell it if you were 95 years old and your great grandson came to visit and asked ole Gramps what it was like." 

Essentially, how I am writing "The Touring Series" is what you can expect here. I envision stuff that draws from stories I brought up in the "Ten Years of Tales" posts, of which there are 46 posts! Those will be embellished with my thoughts and feelings on those stories with additional information never before shared.

The only question I have yet to decide is how I want to approach the telling. Chronologically would make sense, but in some ways the themes within this story span years, and that would make for a somewhat disjointed tale. I'm thinking along the lines of characters like Ira Ryan, or how the media became a part of Trans Iowa, and other tales.

It might be more fun to attack this as tales about certain aspects of Trans Iowa, and really, if I was a 95 year old guy, that's how you'd get this story. It would be memories about recon, riders, Level B Roads, etc. You know, like "I remember these guys called Team Polska that came to a few Trans Iowas....."

So, I have to figure that part out yet. But here again- please comment if you have any suggestions. 

And thank you so much for reading here!