I put together the Northwest cycling events calendar last January becuase I wanted to get a handle on what events were going on in the area. I made it available online in case someone else might find it useful. Apparently they did. This is the most popular feature on my site. In appreciation of the kind words people have had, and because I may have some free time over the winter after NaNoWriMo, I'm kicking around some ideas to improve usability and add features. This is the dream stage, and I haven't looked into the feasibility in any depth.
Comments and suggestions welcome.
Searchability --
The current page is stored in an Excel spreadsheet that gets sucked into the blog page when the page renders. Excel makes it easier to maintain a gargantuan table, however it also adds some incompatible style tags that I have to edit out manually. Furthermore, as a UI, this format is a bit cumbersome, especially at the end of the year.
I am going to put this into a database. This would let end users easily do queries like: "look for a list of all the rides in Washington, that are centuries, and whose cost of entry is less than $20" -- and make it printable.
Event ratings, reviews, and recommendations -- My motive here is simple: I want to do cool events. I'd also like to solicit more interactivity among cyclists. Conceptually, people could register/login and write a small blurb on their experiences, much like Tim did for Tour de Blast and STP.
Voting would be the classic three-point system (Like it/it's okay/Hated it), possibly with a short reason why (the list is remarkably common: weather, size, route, support). Anonymous voting would be allowed with filtering to minimize vote-spamming.
I don't know if this would generate enough data to make the Ride-o-Matic recommendation system, e.g., "People who rode STP also rode...".
Event maps and profiles -- I like looking at the maps and tick sheets so I have an idea of the event's feel. Many bike clubs are producing acrobat-format tick sheets. It might be useful to either link or store a local copy of last year's route or, if it's available, this year's.
Ride edit/moderation -- by this, I mean providing some plumbing that would let other people edit and add rides. (I'd even be amenable to expanding this beyond the northwest.) I know there are more events in Oregon, Alberta and BC that I'm missing out on. Any volunteers interested in helping verify data?
Bulletin board -- Cascade has a very
active bulletin board. I'd like to do something opened to non-Cascade events and with a usable search feature.
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