Profile

f.a.q.

• Why did you make this site?

  Well I had a bike related blog (mtbtransx.com in dutch) where I somtimes posted about my bike rides. After a while I stopped updating the site and it sort of silently died. The main frustration with it was the updating process, with every post I had to manually insert pictures, ride data and youtube videos. Besides that I did not always wanted/needed to write about a ride but I do wanted to post the details/pictures/video of a ride.

  So while I was riding my bike I did some thinking, I do wanted to keep an updated blog. So the question was how can I update my blog more easily. And how can I relate all the media from the rides I make. The main thing they have in common is the date from the day of riding, EUREKA! I'm going to use the date to relate them to each other!

  Next up was HOW... For my work I wanted to learn more about react.js (As of 10th of July 2017 it's Node.js ) and API first developing. And as it happens, all of the media files I publish(ed) about a ride are on sites which have a public API. So what you see here in this site, is a combination of all those API's all wrapped up with the magic of react.js (As of 10th of July 2017 it's Node.js). It was a very good way to learn react.js (As of 10th of July 2017 it's Node.js), it really is a smart & super fast library. All I need to do now is upload the new items and perform a sync on my little admin interface. And voila my site is up-to-date!

  UPDATE - As of 10th of July 2017, I no longer use React on my site, instead I now use Node.js as a backend and a database (mongooDB with mongoosejs.com) instead of Firebase. It's not that I don't like React.js or Firebase, it sort of came out that the updating process was getting out of hand, the whole project became too complex. That's why I did a complete make over, no code is re-used. And since I now use a database I can relate/update/delete items much more easily. So maybe I'll do some updates in the future where I'll use react again, but then only for small parts and not for the whole site.

• Did you win the Strava development Challenge?

  Well I did not win it, but I did got a honorable mention in the top 25! It was the only personal project from the list. Maybe they will have the challenge again this year (2017) and maybe I will send in my site again since I've made a big redesign, added more content and more functionalities.

• How did you make this site?

  As it was one of the reasons I started this site, I've used react.js to make this site. Together with the api's from strava, youtube, flickr & tumblr which all give back json objects. I've setup several node.js interfaces which talk to those API's. I've stripped out some objects since I don't need everything. And of course I'm linking each item with the date. To make all those calls and syncing them I've setup a little admin interface with which I can update,reset and link everything together. And I'm using Firebase to store all that data. If you want to find out more I've written this blog post about some more technical details of the site.

  UPDATE - As of 10th of July 2017, I followed a course on Node.js & Mongoose development https://learnnode.com/ by Wes Bos. It's a very good way to learn developing with Node and I can highly recommend all the video lessons from Wes Bos. And since I'm a front-end developer and know how to use Javascript, it was easy to pick up. So I now have Node as a backend and for the front-end I use the Foundation for Sites framework. Which I adjusted to my needs and updated the marvos.bike style with it.

• For who did you make this site?

  Well my friend for you of course, oh well and to be completely honest also for myself so I could easily search for a ride and see the related pictures & videos. A bit of a bike ride experience diary.

• When did you start biking?

  I think I made my first bike ride when I was about four years old. After that, when I was a teenager, I did ride a mountainbike (Giant Coldrock) but used it only on the city streets. In 2007 I made my first trip with a mountainbike, the TransScotland 2007, no GPS logged rides yet since I did not had a GPS yet, only the pictures

• What was your first bike?

  It was a Giant Coldrock, somewhere in the early 90's. In 2007 I bought a Cube ltd. Team with which I started to do some real mountainbiking. After that I also bought a roadbike in 2009 to do more road cycling so I could easily start a ride from my home. And since 2013 I've a Cannondale Trigger for my mountainbike rides.

• What do you like more, road biking or mountainbiking?

  I like mountainbiking more, it's faster (not in km/h but in turns/downhill) & more thrilling, you see more from nature and you can get to places where you normally can't come otherwise easily. But of course I also like to ride my road bike.

• What was your best bike experience?

  Well all the trips I made were really nice. The TransPortugal was the thoughest, the TransWales 2008 the most wet (no dry clothes after 3 days and sleeping in a tent). But the best experience overall was the Singletrack 6, in Canada WOW, really the best trails I've ever ridden.