It’s time to determine the top dogs of the cycling blogs once again….and it’s up to you to make the selections. This is the fourth time we’ve held the Crank Honors…..voting for your favorite cycling blogs in the categories of:

• Road Cycling Blog
• Commuter Cycling Blog
• Mountain Bike Blog
• Lifestyle Cycling Blog
• Women’s Cycling Blog
• Bicycle Travel Blog

I want to start off by saying that Loving the Bike simply holds these honors each year and we don’t allow ourselves to be in on the running.  But there are a whole bunch of great cycling blogs out there and all of them are able to be voted for. Feel free to also check out our Crank Listed Directory that includes the World’s Cycling Blogs.

Voting Information:

We have included the top 4  blogs from each category in the polls (based on last years voting), but also have a blank spot for you to add in who you feel is the top cycling blog in each category.  If enough votes come in for a blog that isn’t listed in the poll, we’ll add them in.

• You can vote once per day for each category, so be sure to come back often and vote your favorite into the top dog spot.
• Polls are open from right now through June 1, 2013

Let the Voting Begin:

For a full list of all the world cycling blogs (by category), please visit our Crank Listed Directory at www.cranklisted.com.

It’s that time of year again when we provide the platform to select the top cycling blogs in the World. The reigning champions: Cycling Tips (Road Category), Fyxomatosis (Lifestyle), Brickhouse Racing (Mountain Bike), and Going Slowly (Travel/Commuter) will be out to retain their title of Top Dog in their respective categories.  This year we’ve split the Travel and Commuter categories into their own separate polls, and we’ve added a new Women’s category this year as well.

For all of you cycling bloggers, there is also a very exciting announcement from Livestrong that will be disclosed on the Crank Listed site later this week.  Watch for it and  find out the details on how you can get involved with the good people at www.livestrong.org. Exciting stuff.

The polls are now open.  Head over to www.cranklisted.com and help select this year’s Top Dogs.  You can vote once per day per category up until June 1, 2011.

Good Luck to all the Cycling Bloggers.

The Crank Directory is now up.

If you haven’t already guessed, Loving the Bike and Crank Listed are pretty much one in the same. When we launched Crank last month with the call to nominate cycling blogs for the Crank Honors, we put it out under www.cranklisted.com.  We did this because although it was Loving the Bike creating the Crank Directory (and having a little fun with the Crank Honors), we wanted to keep it separate from the blog.

As I’m sure most of you are, we’re huge fans of cycling blogs and we’re so excited about finding great new blogs and reading what the world’s bloggers have to say.  This interest led us to Crank and we are so excited to finally launch the Crank Directory.

This is now the home to what we hope will enable others to locate and become fans with blogs from around the world..  We’ve been able to compile a peloton sized list of blogs, but we know there is still a mess of them out there.  We will continuously build the directory and provide a complete source of listings for our cycling blog community.

Time for some fun – Creating the directory was the main focus, but a little healthy competition is fun as well, right?  We’ve taken all the nominations, and the top 5 nominees in each of the categories are now in for the voting round of Crank.  Poll Daddy only allows you to vote once, but you can vote once in each category.  Check out all the blogs and then You get to decide who will be honored as top dog.

Vote right now at www.cranklisted.com.

Here’s what I’ve learned from Crank so far:

• Honesty – During the nominations phase, people sent in their nominations for what they felt was the best or their favorite cycling blog.  There was nothing in place to stop the same person from nominating a blog over and over….but the cool thing was that it only happened about 5 times.  Amazing.
• Awakening – I had known about a whole lot of excellent cycling blogs prior to Crank, but though the nominations process I was exposed to so many more that I never had a clue about. Man, there are some excellent people out there doing incredible things, and I’m so happy to now be able to share in all of it.
• Friends – I know a good person when I see one, and I also know which of my acquaintances that I’d like to become friends with.  From reading and getting to know some of these cycling bloggers through their sites and through social media, I now have a pile of people I call friend…..or would like to.
• Following – If you’re a cycling blogger, I’m not sure if you realize how many fans you actually have.  I was happily shocked at the amount of love and support many of the cycling blogs received through the countless nominations that came in.
• Praise – We as human beings have an innate desire to be liked and appreciated.  Holding awards or honors is a great way to give out this praise and congratulate those deserving of the accolades.  But I truly want every single blog that was nominated to know that even if you didn’t make it into the voting round of the Crank Honors, you’re a champion in your own right and should be applauded for all that you do. It’s not easy being a cycling blogger….Life, Work, Family, and our own Cycling has a way of filling up the day and keeping us from our writing and blogging.  It’s often a struggle to find time to put it all together.  But you keep on doing it each and every week.  And for that, we honor all of you.

Crank It Up