With the rise of artificial intelligence and the scraping of information to "teach" AI how to write articles, my site, as well as several other blogger's sites, were hit with bots. These artificial "hits" drove the numbers to heretofore unseen heights. The numbers were simply unbelievable.
So, I knew I could not use my stats as a measure of "true" human interaction. However; these bots did not comment, and I can see posts with the most comments. So, it is with this measuring stick with which I have come up with my Top Ten Most Influential Posts for 2025.
I'll list each with a link, date, and a bit of commentary. I won't list these in any order, so don't think the "number one" post received the most comments or that number ten received the least. I'm not going to rank these in that way. I am just going by what seemed to be the most influential by way of impact which motivated comments.
Welcome To The Twentieth Year: May 11th, 2025: The milestone of 20 years of blogging here started on this date last May. I had a series of posts celebrating this feat of writing a daily blog and shared historical high points and images from the days gone by.
A Tree In The Road Ride Report: Technical Snafus & Heat: July 1st, 2025: The post in the series of ride report posts from one of my highlight rides of 2025. It seemed many of the regular readers here and some from the ride itself were trying to figure out why the GPS units at the ride were giving wonky information. To be fair, anytime I post about troubles with my GPS usage those posts seem to get a lot of attention. This one was no different in this regard.
The Original Mukluk Reviewed With Perspective: January 20th, 2025: The bike I call The Snow Dog has been around here a while now and since I had it out for a fair amount of rides in early 2025, I thought a review with a mind to the original intentions for the design might be enlightening. Also, one cannot discount the context of the times when this bike was released.
Let's Talk About The New Surly Straggler: September 30th, 2025: Surly redesigned the Straggler after ten years and it showed up as a completely different bike in terms of "Surly DNA", which the new design was pretty much devoid of, in my opinion. I asked what "you thought", and boy! Did I get an earful!
Two Things: February 5th, 2025: I write a semi-regular series here called "Two Things" which typically has, (surprise) two subjects which I riff on and pontificate upon. They are one of the most popular series posts I do besides the FN&V posts. This particular Two Things touched a nerve concerning Jim Cummings exclusion from the Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame, events and how they are promoted, and the Pirate Cycling Leagues then recent split from Gravel Worlds, an event created by PCL members.
The Future Of Inflation: April 2nd, 2025: Inflation and TPU tubes were BIG subjects on the blog in 2025. This post about mini-inflators caused a lot of commentary. This was kind of an uncommon thing yet in early 2025. Now these devices have become ubiquitous and you can't hardly get away from these things now.
Friday News And Views: November 14th, 2025: The weekly, (nearly so) post on news and opinions is always a big numbers getter here. However, when I announced the possibility of a Luxy Bar redux and mentioned Brant Richards, the Luxy Bar designer, would be reading the comments, well this FN&V suddenly got a lot of comments!
Drop Bars To Take Over Leadville 100: August 8th, 2025: A polarizing subject for some. One commenter in particular took some umbrage to my take on this subject. It was an interesting discussion.
64 Times: January 23rd, 2025: My birthday post. Lots of well wishes. Again, Thank you!
A Loss: August 8th, 2025: The post telling you all about my son, Jacob's death. You know, I find it wild I was able to write this at all. But then again, I was in such a state of shock when I wrote it I was numb to emotions. I couldn't process anything about the event. So, maybe this explains how I was able to get through writing this post. Anyway.... Thanks so much for your concerns, prayers, words, and efforts to help out during that terrible period.
Honorable Mention: Is This Some Kind Of Game? January 12th, 2025: A post about the explosion in costs for gravel bicycles on the high end.
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