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JonMack

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Everything posted by JonMack

  1. Went there this morning, but 5 pallets up to front was defeating me Can get the front wheel on but just can't flick the back up
  2. I think what Dan was implying was that a neutral colour scheme would have been preferred for a bike which is about to travel round the world having all sorts of different riders parts on it
  3. Gayyyyyyyyy! Hahaha why the f**k does Reeces bike creak so f**king badly!?
  4. I find my LH V12 comes loose all the time, so it could well be that they've just been coming loose without you realising.
  5. Haha yeah I guess Ben and I kinda set things up a bit bigger yesterday, think another couple more pallet runs are needed though
  6. Awesome Heath! I was gonna come down but I ended up spending the day with my girlfriend but we'll definitely have to do a session there some time soon!!
  7. Hahaaaaaa can't wait to get my hands on the mod
  8. I'm passionate :$ and thank you very much for the compliment man
  9. JonMack

    Team Caelifera!

    I'm in on mod, June I think.
  10. That looks great, nice one.
  11. I sure hope I didn't write all that for nothing.
  12. Sick riding man, absolutely awesome.
  13. No you really wont. When I was at uni I found myself with so much spare time, that's why I started riding trials again. Yeah the first few days I was kinda busy, but after that we didn't have proper lectures for like 3 weeks, so I just sat around doing f**k all all day every day. If you do want another mod rider, consider me in, and Ben, I'd like it as early as possible if that's cool? June/July?
  14. In the fixie world, there are no winners.
  15. I'm 6ft 1 and ride a Dob mod with a wheelbase of 995mm.
  16. It doesn't cost any extra to send something to Wales, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are combined into what's known as the United Kingdom, or Great Britain (which is slightly arrogant, I don't feel we're that great at all), and as far as I'm aware Adam lives in Northern Ireland, which means it will cost the same amount to ship the frame to him, as it would to ship the frame to my next door neighbour, as our postal service prices aren't based on distance, they're based on size and weight.
  17. Try-All cranks, freewheel, bash and BB for £30
  18. Did you patent being a dick or are you just really really good at it, Jardo?
  19. Although it's been said before, I have to also agree that I feel you're dealing with the criticism the wrong way, you're biting back whereas you should be thanking people. No one likes to hear that their work is shit, I know how that feels, after spending the last 7 or 8 years trying to get to grips with learning and developing my graphic design skills, which eventually led to me gaining a degree, it still hurts when people say they dislike my work, but instead of kicking off at them, which a few years ago I would have done, I accept the criticism, and try to address their concerns. You and your mate may think it's an awesome site, but you're not your client base, we are, and if we turn around and say we think it's shit, then you should learn from that and rectify it. I would have thought you took massive amounts of inspiration from TartyBikes for how highly recommended they are, and also from Trials-UK for how often they are slated, the last thing you want to do is end up in that position, with a warehouse full of stock which no one will buy except your mates because you've lied about having parts in stock which you don't, or you've promised people next day delivery and a week later it still hasn't arrived. It might sound stupid, but before you built your site, did you do any research into things like this http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/ecommerce-websites/ http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/i...onal-ecommerce/ These are both blog posts which are purely about inspiration e-commerce sites. If you spent a few hours looking through those, then compared it to yours, you would see where you've fallen down. At the end of the day, you're trying to start a business, so do it properly. As Mr. Harrison so rightly said, you shouldn't have to "re-coup" your web development costs through the sale of stock, I'm sure TartyBikes have spent a fair few ££££ with Cox Design to get their site looking exactly how they want it to, because they realised they're not talented web developers, so they didn't try to do it themselves. Bearing in mind I'm a web designer (I'm no Eric Mayer when it comes to CSS, and I'm no Pentagram when it comes to design, but I know what I'm doing), I know just how hard it is to design a site like some of those on those blogs I linked to, and if people asked me to design something like that, and I honestly didn't think I could do it, I wouldn't accept the job, there is no shame in admitting defeat, you can't be a jack of all trades, it's just not going to happen. A few things I feel you should take into account, as a potential customer and as a freelance graphic and web designer are the following: Design/content: Don't use a template. I make my life slightly easier by using a barebones grid based CSS template for designing my clients sites, but it literally is barebones, no images, just basic text styling, line height, and well structured layouts, this saves me from having to code the backend for hours to setup a basic layout, all I have to do is design how I want it to look, play with the CSS to finalise my changed, and tada, it's done. However, this can take hours, days, weeks, even months, to get it looking spot on, and I would never, ever launch a site if it wasn't ready. Seems you've gone "that's kinda done, let's get it out there", which is the wrong attitude to take, it should be 100% done, sorted, and perfect before it's launched. I understand that there is no way you would wait until you have all your stock before launching your site, day to day Tarty still adds stock to their site as and when they get it in, but they didn't launch the site with stock from one distributor on it. The logo needs to go, using a free downloadable font from dafont is perfectly acceptable, but only when it's done well. Anyone could download Birth Of A Hero, type that out, and boom, they have it done. I'm not sure what font the guys at Tarty use, I know they used Base02 on their stickers for a while, but at least with their logo, they've personalised it, made it their own, with the simple addition of a stroke. I'm not saying add stroke to your logo and it will be perfect, and I understand the whole grunge thing is cool and you wanna be down with the kids, but it looks awful. There's tasteful grunge, and then there's your logo. Here are just a few bookmarks I picked out of my collection which might help you, http://justcreativedesign.com/2008/12/02/l...sign-resources/ http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/inspiration/...gn-trends-2009/ http://www.fuelyourcreativity.com/50-kick-...or-inspiration/ http://www.smashingapps.com/2008/11/13/33-...nspiration.html What you also have to understand is that re-branding is an ongoing process. You can't design your site/logo once, and stick with it forever, trends change, the web updates, and you need to stick with it. If you wanna be in top shape, you gotta be ontop of those trends, you don't have to set them, and sure you don't have to follow them either, but you can't go using a template from 2006, that whole dark dreary thing isn't cool anymore unless it's pulled off really well, and yours just isnt. Your top menu needs MAJOR work, Home and Web Store is no good, your homepage should be your store, you shouldn't have to click into it, just look at Tarty, as soon as you go on it, you have your categories, easily accessible, you have your latest products, the sale products, and the latest news. It's not my idea of a gorgeous site by any means, but it's a good looking functional site. Yours just screams amateur to me. It needs structure, the top bar really should only have major links such as Home, About, Team, Media, Contact, etc. and these pages should always be accessible, however the web store should also always be on show, utilise a three column layout if you need to, cats on the left, content in the middle, special offers on the right, for example, but you're an online store first, and a website second, not a website first with an online store tacked onto the side. If people can't see a decent amount of product or at least visible links to product as soon as they get on the site, how are they gonna know you're a store. To me the homepage says "Welcome to mine and my mates website, check it out we've got an online store too". That's all wrong. Product product product, notice on Tarty the first thing you see are all the products, the news is underneath. As soon as I click web store, I'm all over the place. I get random products, from crank bolts to inner tubes and brake pads, just thrown in my face, I saw you stocked KHE pegs, so I wanted to check out the price, but because I was scanning the categories looking for "Pegs" I couldn't see it, I actually had to slow down and read every single category separately, because they're under Axle Pegs. Now that wouldn't be a problem if there was some kinda structure to the categories, but they seem to just be thrown in willy nilly, You need to be more structured with your categories, don't just throw everything into the barrel, because people won't find it, split them up, for example, on Pijin, you get Bags Bars Bar Ends Bottom Brackets Brakes Chains Chain Tensioners Clothing Cranks DVDs Forks Frames This makes sense, they don't really offer much of a sub category system, but if we go to tarty, we see a similar structure, yet when we click "Frames" we get plenty of options 20" Frames 24" Frames 26" Frames, 116mm 26" Frames, 135mm You could do the exact same thing, Frames> BMX, Trials, etc. and within them, have sub categories too. What's going to be hard is deciding how to do that, as you've set yourself up as a kinda one stop shop for everything, so if I want a stock frame, would I go Frames > Trials, or would I go Frames > MTB? Then does it go Frames > MTB > Trials, and if so, where do I go for a mod frame, because it's certainly not a MTB frame. You need really careful planning with things like this. It would benefit you to have Categories, then sub cats, then sub sub cats, so we go BMX > Frames > Street, or we go Trials > Frames > Stock, or we go Dirt > Tyres, or DH > Forks. It needs to be well structured, and very well planned. Obviously there are going to be parts that can go in multiple categories, so it's not going to be easy. I really don't know the best way to do it, it could get very complicated, or it could be very simple, but either way, something needs to be done about it, you can't just throw everything into one paragraph and expect people to find their way through it. People have very short attention spans, there are statistics around, but I can't be f**ked to find them, but yeah, people are gonna click off your site in a few seconds if they can't find what they want straight away. I could keep going for ages, but it's 12.15 and I have to be up in 8 hours and would like a decent nights sleep, so I'm going to leave it for now, I just hope I've given you something to think about. I'm not trying to be a fanny, I'm trying to help, from a design and a customer POV. Shameless plug but if you do need some professional quality work done for a fairly decent price, feel free to give me an email, there's a link to my website in my sig, check it out if you get a chance, I'm not out to rip anyone off, I'm just out to try and get my foot in the freelance design world, and get a bit of work for my portfolio. Peace.
  20. I hate to say this but I think you're right. People get lazy, and their good intentions suddenly disappear. Awesome, thats good news. Personally, I'd feel awful, but there are a few people in this community have no respect for other peoples property, hopefully we don't have any of those in this group. Fair enough, although as I just said, I would like to think people would treat it with a bit more respect than that, but I guess we won't know until it arrives, this has the ability to go really well, or go really badly. I agree, I love what you're doing it's a great idea, and I would love to see other companies take this kinda testing method on board, as much as I don't want it to go to a street basher, incase they ruin it for the other people (I'm not even on the list, I just like discussions), it's also the whole part of it, shows whether or not the frame is fit for all types of riders. I guess that's why it's a good thing it's not going to 12 comp riders, it's going to 12 average guys, so that it gets tested by the general riders, not the pros. Handing a bike to a pro and saying "test this" is a great idea, but pros know how to ride, they know how to hit each move as it should be done, and yeah I'm sure they break things and dent things, but at the same time I'm sure they ride a lot smoother than a lot of us. Question, why are there only 7 (even though I assume there are supposed to be 6) and 12 stock riders, do the mod riders get it for 2 months each?
  21. I agree that there are some very childish people on here, I also think there are some very bad mechanics, for example someone who would rather tap a magura mount to M6 than helicoil it (just thinking about someone doing that makes me feel sick). Out of the mod list, these are the people I wouldnt trust/send the bike to; Ben Beynon (Cornwall) Mod Cadbury's (Cornwall) Mod - For this reason, and because of the way he comes across on the forum:- http://www.trials-forum.co.uk/forum/index....howtopic=132863 Lab Rat (Cornwall) Mod As far as I know he doesn't currently have a bike Ashley-Wood (Berkshire) Mod Dan6061 (Buckinghamshire) Mod Ozzy (Pembrokeshire) Mod Adam-Griffin (Ireland) Mod - I really like Adam, he's a great guy, but he took a chisel to a Dengura lever to try and bleed it if the frame broke in his hands, I would not trust him to fix it! Also, I think people should give full names as well as usernames so people actually know who it's going to.
  22. Or use some parcel tape, that's what I do and they weigh 3g each, brings my bike down to 8.155kg with only the bashplate mounts removed
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