‘I thought of that while riding on my bike.’ Albert Einstein, on the theory of relativity.
Welcome to the ‘new look’ While Out Riding.
WOR began life as a blog, charting a bike journey south from Prudoe Bay, Alaska, through the American backcountry, along quiet backroads and dirt trails where possible.
When I left Alaska in the summer of 2009, I wasn’t completely sure where I’d end up; life has a habit of slotting into place when I’m on my bike, so I figured I’d let it take its shape. I’ve always enjoyed bike touring for this very reason: everyday living becomes more straightforward, funnelled through the simple act of spinning pedals. A bicycle is minimal and uncomplicated, so it’s fitting that riding is the perfect mind and body de-clutterer. The blog was a way of recording this extended journey for friends and family, and a chance to process everything I was seeing and experiencing.
That was then and this is now. As of March 2013, While Out Riding has grown into a website, built around the same blog but with lots of added extras – gear reviews, packlists, Q&As, features, route notes, a gallery and healthy recipes for hungry cyclists.
Healthy recipes…
A gallery…
The core of the site is still the stories I post, except this new format will make it easier to navigate and use as a resource. And, photos will appear larger too if you click on them. There’s still some fine tuning and plenty of reorganising to be done; I’ll be trawling through old posts and updating them as and when. Right now, it’s mostly iPad ready but again, there’s a few details to tighten up over the next couple of weeks. Let me know if you spot anything major. Additionally, I aim to be more regular with updating my Flickr page, so check there for images that don’t make it onto the site. And, I might even be making the odd tweet too…
In terms of layout, a revolving carousel of images at the top of the page will link through to different parts of the site which I’d like to highlight – a new travel feature or a gear review, for instance.
New adventures…
At the bottom of the page, there’s a few links to companies who have helped me out over the journey, including Surly, Porcelain Rocket and Tout Terrain. I have one affiliate link too: Bike Shop Hub. Owner Josh Lipton has always offered me a workshop to fettle on bikes whenever I’ve passed through Flagstaff, AZ. If you would like to help support the running costs of this website, you can do so purchasing items through this link – which will earn me a 5% commission. It won’t cost you a penny, the prices are competitive, and most importantly, Josh has loads of hard-to-find touring and commuting gear in stock.
Enormous thanks are due to fellow cyclist Nick Robertson, for working countless hours, fielding my incessant questions and doing such a great job at designing the site – please check out his design studio, Hosie Scott. To liven things up, Nick’s other half, Chloe, has also weaved in some wonderful little illustrations, dotted around the site. And similarly, thank you Kevin Uwins for putting all the nuts and bolts together, fixing all the quirks, and building it in a way that I can understand it and update it. Hopefully I won’t mess things up…
Thanks too to everyone who has fed me, housed me, inspired me, checked in on the blog or left a comment over the years.
I hope you enjoy the new site,
Cass
Really like the new website Cass. Looking forward to seeing the Grub section expand
Thanks Kevin. There’s still a bunch of stuff to do (new content and old stuff alike), but it’s getting there!
Well i’m looking forward to watching it build
Really, really nice Cass. Big Congrats!
Scott
Congrats, the site looks magic!
You have put together a really refreshing site here Cass! The “Billy the Kid” photograph is a tease, hopefully we can read the report in it’s entirety in the future. I did peak over at your Flickr for some of the photos in that set. Awesome stuff.
Indeed, our Ruidoso/Billy the Kid loop is in the pipeline – which, incidentally, stands as one of my all time favourite New Mexican bikepacking rides! Still hankering to check out the Organ Mountains too, hopefully on the next trip down to El Paso.
Great site Cass!!! It looks awesome, keep up the great writing and photography, always a pleasure to come here;) Rich
Layout looks great! Looking forward to helpful hints and more of your amazing photos. And finally in large scale!!! Keep it up and congrats on the little one!!
Thanks for the comments on the site. Glad it seems to be going down well!
Nice job Cass. We had to wait a while but you did it right. looks great and goes right in at No.1. on my bike ” Top of the Pops” reading list. Think it will stay there too!
Congratulations! I really like the new site 🙂
Nice new site!
Looks great!
Lovely! Worth the waiting. ^^
Hi Cass. I was wondering what happened to while out riding, for some reason didn’t get any updates in my email. I now just discovered your new site, didn’t look in detail yet, but let me say that I’m VERY HAPPY to see that I can follow again! By the way, I never got back to you, but the instructions you gave when I was in Ecuador with Sarah were great, we actually ended up finding another dirt trail from Angamarca that brought us across the paramo (4,350 m altitude at some point) to Simiatug. I’ll email you the gps trail of our ride! Thanks a lot and I’m looking forward to catching up on your stories. cheers, sten
Hey Sten, glad you had a good time in Ecuador! There’s a bunch of dirt roads in the Simiatug area I’d love to go back and explore. I think I know the route you took, but would be interested to see your gpx file if you get the chance to send it.
When I relaunched the site, unfortunately it deleted any subscribers. Hopefully that won’t happen again. Hope you enjoy the new stories!
Nice one – love the little details like the sketches and chainring wallpaper – it just keeps on getting better!
Love the new site. One thing about photos, I’ve noticed that if I load them up large, say 1500 pixels, then when they get resized to fit in the main WordPress blog, the sharpening gets all messed up and they come out looking soft. The way to avoid this is to insert them small, 590 pixels seems to be the maximum size I can get away with in WordPress. But then I can’t add large pictures, I am limited to 590 pixels. Maybe if you add in a photo that’s twice as wide (say 1200 pixels) as the displayed version of it in the blog (say 600 pixels), then the sharpening stays in place when displayed small, it just gets divided in half? The computer may be better at handling that than some uneven division.
I upload my pics at 800px, and WordPress resizes them for the blog pages – to around 600px I think. Previously, I always felt it used to soften images and lose some colour, but now I think it does a good job.
This way, when an image is clicked on, it expands to 800px, which I think is a good size – in that you don’t have to scroll up or down, and you still get a good feel for the photo.
If you’re having issues, you could upload twice. Once at the reduced size you want and the sharpening you’re happy with, and once at full size, and set up a link between the two of them. But it’s a bit more fiddly. Maybe try experimenting with the size you upload them, and see if the automatic size reduction works better at 1000px or so.
lovin the new look of the site ,bunyanvelo also is fresh and vibrant with great
photos and stories
glad you seem to be over your health probs
im still thinking “flat thoughts” when climbing hills
chapeu cass
steve r
i’ll add a further echo, Cass, excellent new site!
Loving the new site…looks great. GPS uploads on the way?
Stumbled across by way of porcelain rocket (i think) very inspiring, look forward to checking out more
Hi Cass! I’m not sure if you’d remember me but I met you in Cuenca and travled to Vilcabamba together! I’ve checked out your blog while I was still in S.A and was inspired so much from it! I was going through my pics and thought I would pay another visit to your blog and wow! seems like it has grown so much since then!! Lovely! Hope you are doing well and biking again! cheers!
Hey! Great to hear from you! Thanks for checking in to say hi! Funnily enough, I was just thinking about our neon green juices in Cuenca just the other day. How are you?