Lovely Bicycle
 

Anyone know if Constance Winters of the Lovely Bicycle blog is o.k. She quit writing a couple of months ago. She's a prolific writer and rarely goes a wk. without commentary. Her Facebook ceased at the same time.

First I've heard of her. Based on her Facebook page, I'd say she's being kept busy caring for her mother.

I've been wondering the same.

...It looks like the Lovely Bicycle twitter posted a tweet 45 minutes ago. First tweet since her stuff went silent in early April.

https://twitter.com/lovelybicycle?lang=en

I love her blog. I found it through a photography link a few years ago.

If she's caring for an ailing parent or family member, that task can be all consuming. Been there, done that. Best wishes to her. If she has any free time it should be used for enjoying a bicycle ride, rather than blogging or other online drains.

She's been posting regularly on her Instagram, so it looks like she's ok but haven't had time to update the blog.

The writer behind Lovely Bicycle! is not on Facebook. She has said so several times.

She has several other social media accounts, not only for Lovely Bicycle! but for other business/professional activities and projects she's involved in, most of which seem to be active.

Constance Winters is not her real name.

Thanks for the sudden response.

She moved to Ireland years ago but kept posting.

Well, it still seems she hasn't posted since April on her blog, and stopped posting on Instagram in July. Perhaps it all came to a halt in April but the insta posts were timed? Just a guess.

I thought for the first few weeks/months that she had other more pressing obligations, but it's been so long that I'm legitimately worried (as OP was) :foo:

I guess all I can say is I hope the best for her and her family.

That's correct. Her real name is Babs Caltrane, a notorious gun runner in Memphis. But Babs has red hair! Before that she was a brunette hitman named ZaSu Pitts. And before that she sang backup for Aretha Franklin.

I just realized today that my RSS reader hadn't picked up anything from her since April. My first check was to make sure the link wasn't broken. I hope she's just gotten busy with her knitting business or whatever and has moved onto new interests.

I've been wondering the same for a while. I subscribe via RSS and have been missing her posts. I'd always read her posts before BSNYC, a little something sweet before the bitter LOL. Likewise I hope all is well with her. I'm still in my "early days" of cycling, but in my "early early days", I learned a ton from her blog.

She started a knitting business earlier this year - LB Handknits - and posts regularly to the blog on that site. It's not quite the same for us bicycling fans, but she is alive and well. :-)

I too learned a lot from her blog - I recently completed my first 200K brevet and reread all her posts about randonneuring as I prepared for it. I hope she eventually picks up the Lovely Bicycle blog some day. It did stop rather abruptly.

Yes, she's writing about knitting now. We all know how our interests can change and it looks like her main focus has shifted. You do something all the time for a number of years and suddenly you just need to do something different. I too loved her bike blogs and hope she returns to them someday.

Still, wouldn't it be polite to take 5 minutes and write a 'sorry guys I'm doing something else now' post? Sheesh.

Yeah she should give you a refund

While I get your point, I'm not sure she owes us anything. Her blog is a voluntary effort, unpaid (except perhaps for sponsors). As a result, I'm don't believe we are "entitled" to any explanation other than what she chooses to share or not. Blog pages disappear all the time and she certainly has nothing to be "sorry" for.... I can appreciate what she has chosen to share with us for the time she did. We all move on.

I never said she owed anyone anything. I was talking manners. Yes, blog pages disappear all the time, and the same applies to them. It's good manners to say 'I'm okay, just moving on' rather than vanishing and leaving people hanging. Just sayin'.

Apology blogging is lame. Sounds too much like the "Farewell, cruel internet!" posts some folks indulge in when things don't go their way and they really want their friends who support them in email to publicly beg them to stay.

Some folks prefer ghosting and submarining. They're often misunderstood as being inconsiderate or rude, but mostly it's a defense mechanism and response to social interaction overload. Introverts can only take just so much interaction -- in meatspace or online -- before they need time to den up in the cave and digest for awhile. Like bears, they'll return in the spring.

Sometimes ceasing to post is not intentional nor an indication of 'the end'. Other things are going on and a writer intends to get a post up but it just gets delayed and delayed.

Her blogging updates on Lovely Bicycle will now follow a similar cadence to the books from the Song of Ice and Fire series that George R.R. Martin follows.

By reviving this thread, I didn't mean to start a litany of complaints against her for not responding. I just remember a year or so ago that she took some time away for an unspecified health problem and was concerned that she wasn't posting because her health had taken a serious turn for the worse. Seems like that's not the case. I'm glad to hear she's ok and doing something else that she enjoys.

Blogs come and go. I used to have a semi-private blog I used to keep distant family/friends updated with pictures of my kids because I was trying to keep their pictures and info off of the normal social media sites, but that idea went down in flames when my in-laws started copying the pictures and putting them on facebook anyway. I decided it wasn't worth the fight. Without the motivation when time got tight after a new job, my blog just disappeared. Many of my friends' blogs just disappeared as they got busy or had life changes. It's how things go.

well that explains why I'm still waiting for the next Strong Bad email

Okay, I larfed at that!

Well, she did a fine job of writing and photographing her cycling , and I appreciate her efforts.