Bike Hugger has been picking up traffic and attention recently as more people get turned on to our bicycling ethic–it’s clear we’re not just another website spewing out the same churned-over content about pro racers, doping and product upgrades.
Recently we’ve been approached by a lot of companies for some exciting new projects, and one thing that they’ve asked us is “What does Bike Hugger do? Really, what are you?”
Here’s our answer
Like you, we love bikes. We love to talk about them, we love to ride them, and we really know that they can change the world. That’s our approach, it shapes what we do. It makes us want to hug our bikes. Get it?
It’s why we love the small frame builders of the world (and if we were better with torches and wrenches than we are with code and images than we might be building bikes too) and we love crazy things like teens going to their prom on a tandem.
We don’t spend a lot of time with metrics (though we’ve got them if you need them) and we’re not all that concerned with things like bounce rates and marketing jargon like stickyness. We dislike the term stickyness. We do like the term “stiction.”
We are however dedicated to making an extremely high-quality site–truly a cut above a lot of the dross out there–that brings bikes to the people, in the same way that a rally or a Critical Mass does, except without all the time spent pissing off the cops.
I’ve written about that before in a post and our about. Yes, we’re a blog. Yes, we’re a business. We do this full-time. We’re not here just to score schwag and bike parts.
The reason we’re doing this, and not making a living creating a score of soul-crushing corporate websites is the knowledge that what we’re doing is helping make things better. We don’t believe that in some new-age-hippie, social-media-ego bullshit sort of way. We just know that incrementally, with good energy, talent, and the fellowship of our readers, we can change the car-based landscape.
I think it’s working.
Pop Bikes
The reason we started doing our Mobile Socials is that we noticed more and more bikes cropping up in popular culture. There’s a department store window with fixed gears! There’s Lindsey off for a ride on a Cruiser! There’s a President riding with his young children!
The bike is a constant across various demographics, which is something you don’t realize unless you’ve ridden a bike across countless countries in numerous continents. The bicycle is a passport, it’s a translator, it’s an ice breaker. People are friendlier to people on bikes. There’s a reason for that. The bike is the great equalizer because people love their bikes.
You won’t find a marketing box to put us in.
We’re not a buzz-based marketing campaign– we’re no Paul Frank, iPhone, Lucky Jeans or Axe Body Spray. Heck, we’re not even the tried-and-true editorial format of Bicycling Magazine. We’re a collective of like-minded people, writing honest copy for like-minded people.
This is what we do. We hope you enjoy it and join us for the ride. We’re working hard at it.
Proof
A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilge of hanging out in the green room with the speakers at An Event Apart. It was like a designer brain trust in there. Some of them had ridden with us during the Mobile Social. We talked design, the web, and all, and of course the bike. I also met Simple Scott for a second time (first at SXSW). He designed the Obama campaign. His work changed the world and he’s off now to do it again on something else. Meeting Scott reminded me of what we do here on Bike Hugger and why we do it. The next time the question comes up, the answer is simple:
we’re changing the world with bikes.
Photos: A True Clunker uploaded by George Pollard. The old bicycle and the field of wheat uploaded by Bern@t
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