Hi all.
In the near future i’m looking at creating a new website containing articles to help with everything for the home mechanic.
I’ve got a semi pro photographer friend who would take detailed photos, and I will write everything in a super detailed/professional report with photos every step of the way.
I will put around 2 articles on a week, things like cockpit set up, dérailleur set up/ tweaking and in the future more advanced techniques such as wheel building and fork repairs.

Also as the website gets going i’ll source articles on riding techniques and also maybe fitness routines.
Everything for the amateur cyclist really.

I’m in the process of learning to use wordpress to create a professional website so it should be up within the next few weeks.

Please give me some feedback of what you would like to see or have trouble learning.

Thanks a lot and I will appreciate any responses be it positive or negative.
Josh

A Picture paints a thousand words!!! For any tech walkthroughs, you can’t have too many pictures. If you are using video, make sure it is close up and detailed.

This site sounds great – good luck!!

Other ideas for tech issues – brake bleeding specific to each manufacturer.

What is your qualification for doing this and what do you bring extra from Park tools or Sheldon Brown? those are my go to for advice

Not wanting to put a downer on it, but you will be competing with the Park Tools site which pretty much covers everything on a bike maintenance / repair wise less suspension. There are also the great Shimano Techdoc which cover all their instalations, SRAM FSA & Campagnolo have similar.

Looking at areas they don’t cover may give people more reason to look at a different site, wheel building is always an interesting one, but there is the Jobst Brant book, and Wheelpro book which cover this.

Fork maintenance is interesting, especally for the lower end ones, but if spares are not avaliable, is there much point in showing how to maintain them?

Thinking you need a USP that the others don’t have, would look to see what they don’t have but you do.

It’s mostly been said above but, going by your posting history, do you really think you are qualified enough to be offering advice?
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/helpp-needed-asap-regarding-framedisk-problems

Hey Josh,

All the biggies started small and grew into something big. Most people do not begin as experts, and anyone who tells you they know everything is full of it. So long as you dont expend too much time and money and provided you can sustain the required effort (and you grow sufficiently thick skin) you will most likely succeed. I think success comes as a result of a little luck and a whole lot of effort.

There is a lot of noise on the internet, and not all of it is good – if you want to succeed you will need to rise above the background noise and not become a part of it. If you put the effort into your project I am certain you will could make a living out of it, but I know (from experience) content is king, and original content is hard work.

I think the demographic here is losely middle-aged quite brainy, quite well off financially – and therefore maybe the audience and the market would be the problem. Tough crowd to please. Tough audience. Don’t bet your horse until you are confident it is a safe bet.

I would be weary that there has never ever been a time like this before – so much variation in (costly) components, so much built in obsolescence, such immense marketing budgets. It will be hard to break into the market unless you can really dig deep, or are prepared to persist and grow something over the many years it may take.

I wish you luck in your endevours, and despite the competition, and all the other obstacles which lie in your path – dig deep have faith, work hard and you can succeed at anything you want (but nothing worth having comes easily).

😀

Before you jump into this with both feet, look at what others have done already. Pinkbike has been doing their “Tech Tuesday” for over a year now. Tech Tuesday

Don’t just look at the topics that they have covered, but look at the comments and feedback that they are getting, and make sure that you’re willing to accept the same. Some comments are very complimentary while others are highly critical or even insulting.

And lastly, do a quick google search before you pick a topic and make sure that someone else hasn’t done it (at least not recently) before you put in a lot of time an effort on the same subject!

How is it going to make money?

TJ has it. Why should I go to your website instead of parks? They are the international tool company with years of experience, what do you have to offer?

there are far too many negative nancies on here.

Josh, good luck. There’s a few sites that have this kind of info in video clips and photo run-throughs but usually as a side-show to the main site, so to me that says a lot of potential link-thrus from them to you as an easy alternative if you encourage that and that’s where I guess traffic and ad revenue comes from. I’d guess this isn’t news to you, just my opinion on why it could work out well. Being independant may help there – Park’s site is great, they’re great people with loads of experience but for some there may be a commercial conflict.
So maybe it’d be good to start with the basics done well to attract more of the keen-to-learn new rider/mechanics – everywhere I’ve worked the most common questions relate to fixing flats / getting the back wheel in or out, correcting a rubbing disc, headset looseness and ‘my gears have gone out of adjustment’ or other bedding-in type issues. Think 30-day first service issues.
Start from the first problems a new bike owner may face and work from there – maybe that’s a pointer to a time-line basis to the site. That will help a new rider find soloutions as well as understand the relationship between new and worn-in+needs adjustment, so they can fix things before a bigger problem comes up. This might not be what you’ve got in mind, just an idea from the POV that cycling is growing fastest in the commuter / leisure / fitness road kind of market and the higher end suspension servicing etc is covered well already.

how do you intend on receiving reasonable traffic levels (necessary if you want to make revenue)?

whilst writing some guides will get you a presence on the web, you’re unlikely to pop up on the 1st page of google (which is where you’ll need to be…) without some sort of work on search engine optimisation (seo).

this means a well structured site – good internal links (i.e. click here to see fork maintenance NOT click here to see fork maintenance), good URL structure (eg http://www.blahblahblah.com/forkmaintenance), unique content, relavent content on relavent pages (don’t talk about handlebars on a wheel trueing page)

You’ll also need to look at keywords – no point in writing a piece about ‘fork service’ when everyone searches for ‘servicing forks’ – and once you’ve worked out what keywords to go for, look at how to use them in a page (H1, intros, density of use in article etc)

then you’ll also want to look at meta descriptions (this is what ppl see in the google search results – you’ve got to hook them and get them to click!) etc…

and then…! you might want to look at a link building exercise – google won’t think all that much of your site if there are no decent links to it (SEO follow links from ‘important’ pages (higher page rank than yours))

of course, if it’s just a hobby site (and why not!), this may be a bit too much. but if you seriously want it to make a bit of money, you will have to think about all this (and it can actually be kinda fun!).

As pointed out above these websites are already available and done well so you need to try and offer something new.

My suggestion would be to look at the way people actually do things. Rather than tell people to buy a £200 headset press give clear instructions on how to make one as well. Do the ubiquitous ghetto tubeless. Tell people they can mend a split tyre with a tube of toothpaste and don’t need to carry an more expensive specialist patch.
How to remove stuck bolts. Fork service instructions as sometimes they are hard to find.

You may be as well to link to others work in some cases as they have done pretty good jobs. You could act as gateway that links to all the necessary information.

thats a good idea by jonba…

there are far too many negative nancies on here.

you need negative comments when starting a new business or similar, otherwise all you hear are your friends saying “thats great, go for it” and before you know it you’re up to your eyes in debt with a business that is not realistic…

Make sure you have good public liability insurance.

you need negative comments when starting a new business or similar,

no, you need constructive criticism not “theres already one of them, i wouldnt bother” or “you’re not qualified”

I,d say give it a go, get a decent site name, get up there on the se,s. Pitch at the less savy biker who probably doesn’t frequent forums and already knows all the best places to go.

Before I started asking questions on forums I had no idea about park tools and doing my own maintenence, I just relied on my lbs.

i like the idea!

personally i think the key is to Launch with a decent amount of quality content – a lot of people will look once, and thats your best/only chance to get them back.

a forum to go with the site for requests/ideas/discussion.
i personally like the hope style of videos – decent quality, simple and easy to understand.

Thanks for all the comments guys, good or bad i’ve got thick skin. Haha.
I’m thinking about just starting it as a small “hobby” website then later progress as a larger site.

Basically i’m going to have a site with specific pages for specific areas.
So will have a page for cockpit set up, F/R derailleur and shifters, Cranks.
These will all be specified clearly along the top or side and include all the info to do with that area.
I’ve also considered hosting an online free ebook, so as I add new articles any subscribers will get an email with a download link to download this specific article, they will then be able to download it in word/pdf form and can save it onto the computer for later use/ easier printing. ( I reckon this is a unique USP in itself)

I’m thinking of contacting a few forums to get a kind of “Tech Tuesday” such as that off pinkbike and one specifically has said they have thought of doing a tech article but haven’t had the time, and this is where I would come in, write the article with a link to my website, and then on the forums would offer help to anyone who needed it.

Jonba, this is a very good suggestion, I will consider doing this, May just need to look into Liability Issues for this.

Any more comments will be highly valued
Thanks Josh

Basically i’m going to have a site with specific pages for specific areas.

sounds familiar

Of course its going to be like park tools, its the original bicycle maintenance website.
Everything is the same as something else, for example Singletrackworld is the same as Dirt Mountain bike it just has some extra features, it isn’t illegal to be the same. I just have to find a USP.

For example i’m looking at after setting up the website, expanding to other areas, fitness for example or an extra section on techniques, I’m willing to bet most of you want to maximise your self as well as the bike, i’m only in the starting stages of setting this up and have finalised nothing!

Market research ya see…

I don’t want to be another one of the Nay sayers, but Sheldon Brown covers most of what I ever need to know, so you’re going to have to be pretty good to match him.
He doesn’t seem so big on mountain bikes though, more road bikes, so maybe there is an opening there.

One idea I’ve been thinking of doing for a while is a beginners guide to brake caliper adapters.
I had to ask for advice when I changed brakes and I’ve seen similar questions come up on here regularly.
What’s needed is some sort of “If you’ve got this fork and this size disc and this caliper, you need this adapter” article.
None of the manufacturers, even Hope, make it very clear on their web sites.
Maybe you could do something there ?

That is also another thing I was just thinking about earlier.
I’m thinking about getting the statistics of a lot of the components such as the weight and RRP and so forth, so could include the adaptors in something like that.

It would be later on in time though.

Also not to be disrespectful to the sheldon brown website, It is a little confusing to navigate, which I would hope to overcome.

Yeah, he’s not the best in that way.
The weight things been done. http://weightweenies.starbike.com/listings.php
Again, I’m not trying to put your idea down, but WeightWeenies is well established, has got dozens of contributors and is the recognised first port of call for that sort of information.
What are you going to do, on your own, that’s different or better ?

Overall I just want to make a free, simple website with sections covering the majority of topics on bike maintenance/set up in different situations, downhill and xc, with detailed photographs and detailed but very easy to understand explanations.

This will be aided by a weekly email with updates and links to download the latest articles in PDF format for easy reference.

In the future this will be updated with articles on fitness/diet (carb loading, plyometric training, interval and so on)

But as of now, i’m looking at it for a hobby and a side project to just work on and a personal achievment.

I just posted on here to get a general consensus, and so far it has been mixed, but thank you all again for the comments!

Josh

Go for it. The weight listings thing would be nice – weight weenies is very out of date these days, for example there is only 1 Fox fork listed that is newer than 2005 and that is only 2009.

Have a go, what have you got to lose, although the market is fairly well served, find a niche and go for it.

Although:

So will have a page for cockpit set up

Stick to bikes first, then move on to aircraft later…………..