Thanks to the Snob, but where are all the bikes?

Posted

First off, I want to say thanks to BikeSnobNYC for linking to the OTSG in his post yesterday. That link alone blew the lid off my Google Analytics. The visits to OTSG went up 4170% from the day before – Insane! All this is great of course, provided I have enough good material to maintain even 1% of that new traffic.

My disappointment lies in the lack of Owner Submissions thus far. Of the 1233 visitors yesterday, only 3 owners sent me pictures of their 10-speed, and really only one of those entries was a true Old Ten-Speed. One of the entries was a component from a ten speed. While I appreciate that it’s a project the sender just started, I’d kinda like to see the whole bike. Another entry came in the form of two links, one to a picture of a gentleman in his underwear riding his De Rosa titled Ben and his De Rosa, Rose, the other to a picture of a young woman in her underwear standing in front of her Specialized Allez titled Kacey with “Kandy,” her Allez. The sender indicated that these two images were, “…shot as an addition to flickr’s bicycles & underwear group.” Once again, I appreciate the effort and thought, but it does not really fit the format of OTSG. The one entry received that I feel fits the format of this site will be posted this afternoon.

Now I do not want to come off as ungrateful toward the people who did send me their entries, but I would have hoped for more responses from the other 1230 of you out there.

Another pleasant surprise from yesterday’s flood of traffic was the poll statistics. I have learned from recent political exit polling that these things can be inaccurate, but nonetheless, I was encouraged that 33 39 of 63 74 respondents actually own an old ten-speed. I was even more encouraged by the 4 5 respondents who indicated that they were so impressed by this site and all the 10-speed talk, that they were going to trade in their oberhip fixed gear and opt for a sweet ten-speed steed. This is the kind of progressive thinking we like to see here at the Old Ten Speed Gallery.

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  • Greg in DC

    Cameron: Good job with the site. I’m a BSNYC fan in DC. After looking at your site the other day, I started looking around for old ten speeds on the streets of DC. I never noticed them before — probably because I was looking for fixed gears — but there actually are a lot of them! No joke, I think you are really on to something here.

    Maybe I should buy a bunch of old ten speeds as an investment. Could an old ten speed bubble be on the way???

  • http://www.bike-oven.5u.com Harv

    Ten-speeds are an endangered species in Los Angeles right now. Most are scooped up and converted to fixies or single-speeds (which are the new fixie, imho). Far exceeding ten-speeds in number, are the 12-speeds, which suffer the same fate. We here at the Northeast L.A. Bike Oven (www.bike-oven.5u.com) have, as one of our goals, to get as many crappy old 10 and 12 speeds back into the hands of urban riders as fast as we can get these donated bikes ready-to-ride. Most fly out the door as soon as we get them checked out.

  • http://oldtenspeedgallery.com The Ten-Speed Dreamer

    Harv,
    Sounds like like a cool operation you’ve got there. I’ll have to link to the Bike Oven soon.

  • Bob

    Cameron – I can give you plenty of 10-speed photos of just mine alone! If only I could get them to take.. keep getting rejected due to “improper file type”