Thread: OK, this is a close as it's gonna be for now

I cannot express my Thanx to those who helped me get this far. It was a rough start. It is a good thing that my PC is not set up for voice recognition, because it would have learned some really interesting words this past month!
To the newcomers, use this forum and dont't give up. To the "brass", I will be there some day. Your comments, critique is greatly appreciated and anticipated.

Thank you,

Ken

www.chicagocycleconnection.com

Your site is FANTASTIC! Now I want to dust off my bike and hit the trails! You can be very proud!!! Love that you have a message board, and all the other things people who share your passion can really use!

The only thing I could think of was that the dark blue text on the black background was hard to read, but not impossible.

The other thing, when you go to the Bike shop and map pages, there is no way back to your home pages within your pages. I think it would just be an extra nice touch to have a "home" button, or repeat the entire menu bar on each page so that no matter where I am, I can advance to another page without going back to home.

WAY TO GO! You deserve some cheesecake or a beer! Or pizza? NOt sure what Chicago is famous for besides Oprah! LOL just kidding!

God bless you my friend! I am a big bicycle fan. Worked in bike shops as a kid and still ride it to work every day!

Nice job. Major Islandcrazy makes good points. Other than that- have fun and keep biking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Andy

I lve it! I don't like the blue text, make it yellow. You have a winner!!

Hi Ken -
Unfortunately, you won't like what I say. While your site looks good in many ways - black backgrounds are considered one of the worst to use on the internet - they hurt eyes and cause more click offs sites than most anything else. They do work in rare instances - and are especially great with artwork - but they make text hard to read - which I believe is why you made a white background for the text on another page - which takes away from the sites continuity for me.

If you really want to keep the black background, I agree that the blue text has to go - as it really is harder to read. And the color it goes to after clicking on it is worse, I'm sorry to say. This is a case where keeping it the same color (yellow or light tan works against black) would be smart.

I also dislike that when I go from one page to the next, you move the navigation on me. Some things are best to be in the same place on every page - make things as easy for your visitors as you can.

You've done a tremendous amount of work - and it shows - but you need to work on continuity between the pages - and if you want the black background - I suggest you use it as a border - with the pictures and header on it - then have the center a lighter background - and make it continue through all your pages.

These are just suggestions - as I've said, you've done great work - I just want to see it even better :) - especially cuz I'm from Chicago originally - so I have your best interests at heart - I love that city!

Hi Ken,
I like the site, but agree with the above comments re not being able to navigate back "home". Are the Bikemap and forum sites belonging to others? You could get round the problem by having the sites open in a new window (as it does for the national bike registry link) then at least people don't lose your home page.