By Robbie L Chapman
There are so many different types of bikes and uses for bicycles that it can be a little difficult to sort it all out or, if you are fairly new to cycling, find the right bike, or bikes that fit your riding style and meet your own personal biking needs.
If you are fairly new to biking, getting more serious, or possibly just getting back into cycling after not riding for some period of time then it is very important to consider your personal riding style and preferences before deciding on a bike type, excluding the other bike categories and researching one particular bike type or bike category in detail.
I’ve seen quite a few references to common bike types on the internet on informational sites, bike manufacturer sites and on merchant sites (where you actually buy the bikes online). You will find that the names for the bike categories or bicycle types will differ somewhat on each web site.
The listing below is intended to summarize the most common or most popular bicycle types using the most commonly used names (in the US) for the various bicycle types or categories.
Common Bike Types
- Mountain Bikes
are designed of “off road” riding and are great for use on back country trails, hills and ravines. Mountain bikes are also popular as all purpose bikes for use on roads, paved and crushed stone trails as well as rugged trails due to their durability. One of the more important considerations when choosing a mountain bike is the type of suspension that is best for your needs. There are rigid mountain bikes which have no suspension, hard tail mountain bikes which have front suspension but no rear suspension and full suspension models.
- Road Bikes
are designed for use on roads, tracks and well maintained bike trails. For many years this category was referred to as 10 speed bikes. Today most of these bikes have 3 sprockets in front and multiple sprockets in back so they normally have more than 10 speeds. There are also a number of different types (or sub categories) of road bikes such as Racing Bikes, Touring Bikes and Sport Bikes.
- Hybrid Bicycles
are a cross between different bicycle types. The most common reference is usually the cross between a mountain bike and a road bike. These bikes usually have tires that are thinner than a mountain bike but wider than a typical road bike (700×35c is common), the handle bars are more like a mountain bike and you sit up straighter than on a road bike. Some hybrid bikes are designed for comfort and all purpose use and many come with shock absorbers (front and/or under the seat) and comfortable seats.
- Recumbent Bicycles
(also referred to as bents) take advantage of reduced wind resistance, and are fast and comfortable. Recumbent riders sit in a reclined position as opposed to the upright or forward leaning positions of more traditional bikes. Bents are becoming much more popular than in the past and are suited well for touring, bike trails (not rugged mountain trails) and roads. There are many different configurations of recumbent bikes. There are Short Wheel Base (SWB) where the pedals are above the front wheel, Long Wheel Base (LWB) where the pedals are behind the front wheel, Above Seat Steering (ASS) where the handlebars are usually about chest high, and Under Seat Steering (USS) where the steering is under the riders seat (less common). There are also tandem recumbent in addition to recumbent trikes with the double wheels in front or in back.
- BMX & Freestyle Bikes
BMX bikes are designed for off road racing on dirt tracks, Freestyle and Jump Bikes (in the same general category) are designed for performing stunts and tricks and jumping ramps. These are usually (but not always) 20 inch bikes with upright handlebars, knobby tires, rear hand brakes and, in some cases, additional front brakes and pegs for stunts.
- Cruiser Bicycles
(or beach cruisers) are the old style or classic bikes with balloon tires and upright seating position that were popular in the US until around the late 50s. These bikes are comfortable, sturdy, durable and can handle a variety of different terrains. Most cruisers are heavy and usually have just one speed (the downside to their durability).
- Kids Bikes
are another category altogether. Kids bikes really come in a variety of different styles and sizes. Bikes for kids usually include the 10 inch to 16 inch size bicycles (with or without training wheels) but older kids may also prefer any of the other bike categories above (mountain bikes, BMX, road bikes, etc.) This category may also include tricycles, scooters, ride-on toys, push toys and other adult bicycle accessories for children such as child seats, bike trailers and kid carriages, and trailer bikes
Miscellaneous – Other Popular but Less Common Bicycle Types
OK, now that we’ve covered the most common and most popular bicycle categories, let’s see what else is out there. There is no way that I can cover all of the bike and bike-like types of machines that have been created, invented or are available to purchase, but the list below does cover some of the additional bike or bike-like categories that are fairly popular.
- Chopper Bicycles or Low-Rider Bikes – These are usually flashy custom build bikes with extended forks and lots of chrome and/or custom paint jobs that are designed be comfortable and to attract attention.
- Folding Bikes
These bikes are designed to fold into a light and compact package for commuting and longer trips where storage is a factor.
- Commuter Bikes
can be any bicycle type depending on how you are commuting. If you are commuting to work by roads, a road bike might be the best choice, if you are commuting by side roads and bike trails a hybrid or mountain bike may be your choice. What I have found here in the suburbs is that if you are commuting to the train station, leaving your bike at the station, and then taking the train to work, most people choose a “beater” (a stripped down bike with little value) to leave locked at the train station.
- Electric Bikes
come in a variety of styles but most resemble mountain, hybrid or cruiser bikes. These bikes are human powered (you pedal them like a regular bike) but have a supplemental battery powered motor for help on hills or when you need a break. The batteries are rechargeable and have a limited range (usually around 35 miles)
- Utility Bikes
can be any bicycle type that is practical for short commutes and everyday errands as opposed to use for recreation or fitness. Utility bikes often include luggage carriers, baskets and/or bike bags.
How to Choose the Best Type of Bicycle for You
–About–
By Robbie Chapman – See http://www.about-bicycles.com For more detailed information on bike types, bike brands and bike accessories. Rob Chapman, http://www.about-bicycles.com – Bicycles and Bike Accessories Online and Chicagoland Bike Trails.
Source: Cool Biking Zone – Your source for great cycling, sports and fitness articles!
Configuring your plugins is not too tough, but can be confusing when you first see all the options. I am going to show you what I do to configure my plugins for niche sites ~ whether they are small or large. This is the way I do it, it works for me, and I’m sure there’s other ways for it to be done. Just remember, obsessing about your plugin configuration is not going to make you any money. So get them configured and then we’ll be moving on to content creation which IS a money making activity.
All in one SEO pack.
Let’s get started with this one, since it yells in big red box whenever you open the page. You can click the link that says go to the admin page in the big red box at the top of your page.
plugin status: click enable
Scroll down to the “home title” box. This is where you’re going to put the title you want to show up in your header and in the blue stripe at the top of the page. You may have already filled in the title of your blog in your general settings area. This will override anything you’ve put in that space.
Use keywords that will encompass all the posts you will be making ~ like you did in the url.
For the mountain bike site I will be using: Used mountain bikes for sale (this covers three keywords ~ used mountain bikes and mountain bikes for sale, as well as used mountain bikes for sale)
Home description.
This is like the tagline and you have probably already figured this out as well. You can copy paste what you already have here. Whatever you put here will override what’s in your general settings as well. Use keywords, but make sure it’s descriptive of what your site is about, not just a list of keywords. Remember, this is a RESOURCE for people.
Never let SEO take over the readability of your site. Because while it’s important for the search engines to love you, if the people they send to your site get turned off by you’re content being written just for search engines they won’t buy.
ex. mountain bike site: Buy used mountain bikes and find great deals on mountain bikes for sale
Home keywords:
These do not show up on your site. They are what is known as “meta tags” in the html code of your site. There is some contraversy about how much meta tags are used by the search engines, but it does you no harm to fill them in and it gives you one more possible way to let Google know what your site is about. You want to pick your best 5 to 8 keywords to put in here. When I say best I mean, highest search volume. Separate each keyword with a comma.
ex: cannondale mountain bike, giant mountain bike, gt mountain bike, kona bikes, specialized mountain bike, trek mountain bike
The rest:
I leave at the default settings.
Click update options.
To configure the next plugin look for the settings category in your sidebar. If it’s not already open click the word so it will show you all the options. If you looked around after you installed your plugins you may have noticed this is where you can change and configure the plugins that need it.
Simple Link Cloaker
While this is next on my list, we won’t be using this one until we write some content, so we’ll review it when we need it. It simply allows you to put your affiliate link in one spot, but then you can choose a link to make that forward to. This way all of the affiliate links on your site don’t look like affiliate links they look like regular links from your site. Don’t worry I’ll show you exactly how to do it when we need it.
Tweetmeme
This is the next plugin on my list. This plugin will allow your readers to share posts from your site with their followers on twitter. Whether or not you have a twitter account doesn’t matter. If you do it’s nice, but if you don’t it’s ok too.
So click tweetmeme in the settings section and let’s configure this one.
Positioning:
Where do you want the button to show up? I think it’s nice at the beginning of the post ~ but it’s also nice to have at teh bottom of the post so when people finish reading and they like it the button is right there for them to click. There is an option for both to have it at the top and the bottom, which is also a possibility.
If you are using only excerpts of posts on your front page I definitely would use one or the other. It looks crazy with both on exerpts. But what I suggest is you try them all, one at a time, check out your blog and see what it looks like. See if you like the way it looks.
Choose one right now, just tick the box in front of what you want.
Type: I leave the normal size widget.
Display: I untick show on pages ~ I don’t really want people tweeting my privacy policy and my about page etc. Depending on the site you are building you may want to leave the widget on the pages ~ but for a niche blog I would take it off.
** If you are doing a 1 or 2 page niche site I would not use this plugin at all. Since we are going to have lots of pages of content I think it’s a good plugin, but I wouldn’t use it on a really small site. **
Source: when someone clicks the button it will give an automatic post for them to tweet. If you fill in your twitter username here it will give you a retweet which is good, and helps you keep track of who’s tweeting your site.
If you have a twitter username ~ a go ahead and fill in your username in the space available. If you don’t have a twitter username you can still use the plugin, it will just say tweetmeme instead of you when people tweet your post, which is fine.
Save changes. Click the save button at the bottom.
Related Posts:
You may get a message to move some templates around in your files. Don’t worry about it. That piece allows you to create custom templates and is not necessary. If it doesn’t find the templates where they’re supposed to be it just turns that piece off. It’s not necessary so don’t worry about it.
The Pool.
This is where the plugin chooses content to show. I leave this in the default settings.
Relatedness.
Since this is a niche blog your posts are likely to be pretty related. I leave the relatedness options as the default. However, if I see I have no related posts showing up after I have 5 or 10 posts written I will come back in and change the match threshold number to 3 and see if that gets posts to show up. It usually does.
Display options:
I leave them default. I personally like up to 5 related posts, but if you would like fewer, or more change the numbers around and see what it looks like.
Display options for rss:
I leave these as default as well. It’s nice for some related posts to show up when people subscribe to your feed, it can help get people back to your site.
Update options:
Click the button and you’ve configured this plugin
XML Sitemap:
This plugin will create and submit a map of your site to the search engines. It will update your sitemap as you put more and more posts on your site.
While this plugin looks complicated I leave all the default settings and just click the create sitemap button.
It usually only takes a second or two for the sitemap to be created and the search engines to be notified. Once you get the message that your sitemap was created that’s it for this plugin.
Akismet:
Akismet comes installed on your blog, all you have to do is activate it. Akismet is a fantastic plugin that will manage 99.9% of your spam for you automatically. It really is a fantastic plugin.
To activate akistmet you’re going to need an API key. Let’s get your key.
Go to wordpress.com (go ahead click the link ~ it will open in a new window).
This is wordpress.com ~ it is totally different than what you’ve just installed on you blog. Wordpress.com is yet another free blogging platform, much like blogger ~ however, they are NOT very friendly to people trying to make money online. They are the master of the API key so you’ll have to have an account.
If you have an account here, just log in. If you don’t you’ll need to sign up for one. You can create just a username or user account (something like that) that will just create an account here (and an API key) but won’t create a blog for you. This option is fine.
You will have to create a username, and a password. Then you’ll have to go to your email and click the confirmation link. Once you’ve done that you should be able to log in.
Once you’ve logged in you want to go to the account link and hover over it. You will see a bunch of options when you do that. Choose edit profile.
When taken to your profile page your API key will be the first thing on the page. Copy it so you can paste it where it needs to go.
Go back to your niche blog dashboard and click on the plugins category.
Akismet should be the first one on the list. Go ahead and tick the activate link. When you do that you will see a message at the top of your screen that says you have to enter your API key to activate. Click the link where it says “enter your wordpress API key” and that will take you to a space to paste it.
Go ahead and paste your API key in. I also click the box to delete spam after 30 days, that way I don’t have to worry about it. Then click update options to save. Once you do that your akismet plugin will be operational and you’ll be good to go.
That’s it for configuring plugins. If you have any questions make sure you ask in the comment section. I’ll do my best to answer them.
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