cuda2k

Now that Christmas is now come and gone, we are rapidly approaching the beginning of 2011. I wanted to take a moment to thank all of the BikeForums C&V members who have helped contribute to the continued success of VeloBase.com over the last year.

Y'all have contributed information, photos, pointed out when information on the site is incorrect, and supplied feedback on the endless updates and improvements that I have made to the site this past year, and since it's humble beginnings back in the summer of 2007.

Here's just a few of the highlights of the changes and improvements to the site in the past 12 months:

1) Persistent search / Saved Search functionality: when a search is performed on the site the search criteria is saved for up to a year, allowing the link to that search list to be posted in forums, email, etc. Members can also save search result lists to a personal list of searches for quick retrieval later.

2) Bicycle & Frames collection: From beta release to a now growing and quickly improving collection of bicycles and frames. I have a lot of work yet to do to make the deceivingly complex nature of describing a bicycle/frame into a more user friendly interface, but it's going to get there in 2011.

3) Complete overhaul of the Photo Upload pages - allows for easier multiple photo uploads, drag & drop reordering of photos, cropping of uploaded photos after upload. This was one of many changes and improvements I made to the add & edit functionality of the site in the past year.

4) Too many incremental improvements to just about every view page in the system. Everything from the Brand Directory to Photo Album to the Glossary and Catalog List to the MyBase pages got some much needed tender loving care to bring the site's look & feel to a more consistent level.

5) Nearly complete and total overhaul of the Forum. While it may not come close to the forum here on BikeForums, at least now it's a bit more useful for more than just me posting my release notes and keeping track of problems and bugs on the site. I also added a Private Messaging functionality to the website in the last half of the year.

And what drives me to continue working on and improving the ever growing and expanding software that runs VeloBase.com? It is the contributions by members here on BikeForums and indeed around the world. I'll keep the stats short and to the point, but VeloBase is now host to over 11,000 photos spread across 3600 components, 650 head badges, 140 frame parts, 160 Bicycle Frame models, 260 vintage tools, and 102 team jerseys. This year alone, together we added 650 of those components, 225 head badges, nearly every one of the frame models, and uploaded an amazing 4100 photos across the site.

So thank you, for making 2010 a great year for VeloBase.com, and I look forward to 2011. And as always, my inbox is always open to suggestions, feedback and even heads up when information on the site is incorrect. As the tag line says, it is your vintage cycling database, and I appreciate everyone's involvement in making it better each and every day.

cuda2k

I'll take the resounding silence as word that y'all are either still in holiday food coma, or telling me to get my nose back to the grindstone and finish the latest round of updates to the Bicycle & Frames collection.

bibliobob

Thanks for all your hard work. Velo Base has become a great resource that provides a significant benefit to the world of C and V. Is there anything in particular that you're looking for at the moment?

Best of luck in 2011,
Bob

gomango

I just wanted to say thank you for all of your hard work.

I am a member of various forums abroad, and I constantly hear nothing but admiration for your service and resources.

I tip my hat to your efforts!

cuda2k

I need to compile a new list of the top items in need of update. I do have a built in feature on the website I call the 'Most Wanted' list, which can be filtered and sorted: Component Most Wanted

And here's a list of 200 components which I currently need updated photos of: Components w/ unknown source Photos. Of the over 11,000 photos many were added before I started keeping track of the original source of the photo. While they were added with permission of the owner of the image, I can no longer ID who that was and thus I'd like to update the listing with new photos who I do have a confirmed source for.

Hopefully in the next month I can finish the updates to the Bicycle & Frames section which will improve the Add & Edit functionality to a point where it is much easier for myself and other members to add entries and get that collection growing. It has been a struggle to create a design which is both user friendly and provides enough detail to adequately describe a bicycle frame for later use in identification and research. I think now that my ability and knowledge as a software developer has matured as well as my experience with the current design, I may finally have the tools needed to do a proper job of it.

RobE30

I just now went on VeloBase for the first time, WOW! What a helpful site! Great work!

old_dreams

Velobase is a fantastic site that I return to again and again. Thanks for all your hard work in keeping it going. I have contributed some stuff in the past and plan to again. One thing I have wondered about is whether you ever intend to go commercial with the site. I had a quick look through just now and didn't see anything.

-holiday76

i check out velobase at least 3.45 times a week.

Thanks and happy new years!

auchencrow

Kurt - I really had no idea that you were instrumental in making that all happen - it's truly a wonderful resource! - (uh oh - I just realized out I'm indebted to you. )

LeicaLad 

What's really wonderful is just how "established" VeloBase is to many. I've seen references to it from the widest possible range of sources.

Of course, the downside to that is that just too few people realize just how much solitary work has been done by Jon to create this utterly invaluable resource!

Jon is incredibly generous with his praise and credit to the various contributors (and, yes, we all thank them, too), but the fundamental framework and household work has been long inglorious hours by Jon.

I, too, am hugely indebted to this work. I'll continue my tiny contributions whenever and where ever it looks useful.

THANK YOU, JON. For all of that and more.

Happy New Year to you, too!

Owen

P.S. -- And he's REALLY generous in forgiving us when we call him Kurt, rather than Jon!!! Ooops.

khatfull

ftfy

Same here...an invaluable and instrumental resource.

Thanks Kurt!

sss

Uh, Kurt? How about Jon. Perhaps I'm confused...

cuda2k

It's easy to get the two cuda's here confused. Yea, it's me, Jon, not Kurt. It's not the first time, so no worries.

old_dreams - no plans as of now to go commercial with the site. I have considered building a sister site that would be for buying/selling of items. Since a vast majority of photos and other content on VeloBase has been supplied by its members I intend to keep it free as long as I'm able to cover the costs of keeping it running (discounting the hours I put in of course). I have been taking on a couple of advertising sponsors to help offset costs, and hoping to bring on new sponsors in the new year.

... I do like how the guy with 26 posts but has been around since 2005 knew which was which though.

cuda2k

Here's a little sneak peak into what I'm currently working on - and hope to have wrapped up in the first week or two of the new year.

In the process of streamlining the Frame Add & Edit pages, I am eliminating the second page you had to go to in order to select specific Frame Parts (Frame Lugs, BB, Dropouts & Fork Crown) that made up the frame. One it was slow, two it was cumbersome - even for me who built the system in the first place. So out it goes, and in its place I have created two modal dialog windows on the main Frame Detail page.

The first opens with a list (with an image of each part for visual ID) of options for that frame part.


If the option you're looking for is not listed (and you are a Certified Vintage level user on VeloBase) you have the ability to add a new option right then, without leaving the page.


This should hopefully improve the user experience when adding or editing a Frame Example in the system. These changes along with many others are slated for release with version 2.7.2 rev.3. As always the full release notes are always posted in the News & Announcements section of the VeloBase forum.

bennie222

Jon, how comprehensive do you want velobase to become? I'd really like to see the catalog section grow. I have been looking through Raleigh catalogs lately, and seem to find good collections elsewhere on the web, but not on velobase. SB has a great 1985 catalog, and older ones can be found elsewhere. Would you like us to collect these PDF's and post them to velobase? I don't want to steal the collections of other vintage document collectors, but you know how it goes, a site might just disappear tomorrow and all the knowledge goes with it.

dashuaigeh

Jon, I had no idea you were so involved in VeloBase. I use it almost all the time - fantastic work!

cuda2k

I always ask permission from those who have taken their own time to create catalog PDFs before rehosting them on VeloBase. I've already had VeloBase taken offline once by my webhost because someone posted the text from one company's 'History' page on their corporate website without prior approval. I'd like to avoid a repeat of that situation. If we can get the permission to rehost the files, then I'm all for adding them to VeloBase. Additionally, I do keep a personal download of many catalogs that I come across on line for easy reference when I'm working on VeloBase data. Ideally I'd like to get most if not all of the information out of the catalog pages and into the VeloBase data so that it can be easily searched on, but having the original catalog scans is always good also for for the sake of it.

Thanks! It started out as a little project idea I had back when I was a fairly green programmer fresh out of college and wanting to improve my skills with the new to me ASP.NET technology that my company was going to write the new product in. Needless to say it's grown a tad from those humble beginnings when I thought it would be cool if I got having a collection of 500 or so components. Head badges and tools collections were added soon after the start and it has just grown and grown since.

cuda2k

And now, for real, Happy New Year!

auchencrow

Thank you Jon. All the best in the new year.

cuda2k

For your improved enjoyment, VeloBase.com Version 2.7.2 rev.3 went live this morning. Details on the changes included in this deploy can be found in the linked thread. I hope this will be the first of many improvements coming in the new year.

dashuaigeh

Jon, thanks for maintaining this awesome site!

3speed

I actually haven't really used VeloBase before, though I have seen it mentioned around here. I just gave it a look, and it seems like a Great resource. Now that I've seen what it is I'll start using it. Thanks!

What are your requirements for the bikes posted on the site? I noticed you don't have "Cierra" bikes on there, as seemingly No one has info on them. I don't believe they were terribly high end, but my Cierra Professional 5000 is made from Tange Champion 2, has Suntour ARX, Dia-Compe Gran-Compe, SR, etc. level components. Let me know if you'd like pics/specs of everything(paint is rough, but no rust). If not, that's totally fine. I don't really know what you go for on the site so I don't know if that bike fits what you put on the site. I do know I've Never been able to find Any info about it anywhere online, so it might be helpful for others in the future if it fits your criteria.

cuda2k

3speed - the frames/bikes collection is still fairly new, which is part of the reason why there are so few bikes on there right now. That and it does take a fair bit longer to add a bicycle frame to the website than it does a component - though that is one thing I have been trying to improve on over the last month or two. I'm hoping that here before too long the improvements to the frames collection will be completed so that all members will be able to add their own bicycles / frames to the website without much difficulty.

As far as requirements, pretty much any bike pre-1995ish is welcome, from high end to bike boom is fine by me as long as the information is filled out to a reasonable level so that the entry is of value to other visitors.

3speed

Awesome. I'll get going on the info and pictures in a couple days when I get back home. It would be great to be able to help some future searcher find some info on this thing, because I think it's actually a really decent bike, rides great, but there's just no info to be had anywhere. I don't actually know the year, but definitely pre-95'. My guess is late 80s.