Logo change - did you see the tent? Also, site suggestions.

[ScottM]

I finally got around to upgrading the bp.net logo.  It uses a bikepacker drawn by Trevor Browne.

New logo:



Old logo:



The old one was pretty cheesy, I know.  Hopefully the new one is a little better.

My question is, did you notice the tent icon behind the logo, or did you think it was just a mountain or trail blaze?  I'm finding that people who've been on the site for years never realized it was supposed to be a tent (you know, bike riding *and* camping).  That's a fail on my part for the logo design.  Anyway, I kept the tent behind for old times sake, so far.   May change it.

Also, I'm hoping to spend some more time upgrading and modernizing the site.  I'd love some ideas on how best to improve things here on the forum and the main site.

Thanks!

[gdillon]

Ha! Never noticed as a tent. I will always see it now, though. The new tent background is like the universal sign for camping, so that's cool. And clearly I need to try more wheelies when I'm bikepacking.

I also like the featured posts. Nice work.

Gabe

[AZTtripper]

Cool to see some upgrades here. I do like the new logo with the fully outfitted bike.

I like the idea for the featured post. It would be cool to see a pic in there as well. Another site that I go to a lot http://www.mountainproject.com/ has a slide show in a similar placement. I'll go to that site repeatedly just to watch the slide show. Even if it was just the first pic that goes with the featured post.

[ScottM]

Yeah, when bikepacking, I spend more time riding a wheelie than not!  I also see the bikepacker as just climbing a hill. 

Gabe -- you must have noticed the featured post slider just as I was dropping it in.  Yep, adding photos is where it's at.  I think that's the main thing I'm going to try to improve here on the site -- adding photos.

Seems like more folks will be motivated to add trip reports and personal setups if they're featured on the main page's slider for a while.

Tim, thanks for the input.  I'll see if maybe I can get the featured posts slider to be embedded here on the forums, too.  I have a basic one going on the front page of the wordpress site.

[AZTtripper]

Yeah pics in a slider would get me to drop in to the home page more often, to be honest I had set my bookmark to take me right to unread forum posts, pics will get me to at least hit the home page first.

The Mountain Project site is pretty slick, tho it's gotten a bit commercialized just in the last year.

[aaron w]

I think it would be cool to have a specific forum for TD/GDMBR stuff.  There are so many questions people have for such a long route, I think it would be a lot easier to find stuff if threads didn't need to go 50 pages long.  Thanks for everything, this is my most often visited web site 

Oh, didn't notice the tent.   Maybe there should just be a bivy in the background...

[AZTtripper]

A FAQ page for each of the big routes might at least limit each years thread to currant issues. Rather then rehashing everything each year.

Even if you don't pitch a tent the tent is the symbol of camping, not that what most bike packers do would be considered camping by 99%.

[JRA]

I like the recent changes to the site.

The tent logo threw me at first though.  I thought it was the logo of an individual forum member that was repeatedly posting.

[ScottM]

I think it would be cool to have a specific forum for TD/GDMBR stuff.  There are so many questions people have for such a long route, I think it would be a lot easier to find stuff if threads didn't need to go 50 pages long.  Thanks for everything, this is my most often visited web site 

A TD/GDMBR forum is probably a good idea.  The giant thread is pretty cumbersome.  Thanks Aaron.

[JRA]

Sometimes there are topics that don't fit well in to any of the categories.  You could consider adding generic category for anything that doesn't fit elsewhere.  Sort of a cyber campfire for open discussions or random posts.