In the coming weeks TucsonVelo.com will transition to BicycleTucson.com.

The decision was not an easy one to make. It seems like readers are evenly split according to the poll and feedback I received when raising the question last month.

Change is hard, but sometimes it is necessary. Ultimately I decided the switch needed to happen because attracting news readers to the site is important  for it to grow. A large chunk of my traffic to the site comes from search engines and using a term for readily searched will help increase that.

Additionally, BicycleTucson.com is much clearer to new cyclists who may not know what “velo” means.

There are other changes coming in the next two weeks as well.

In addition to the new name, the site will get a slightly new look. We’ll be transitioning to a theme that is more mobile friendly making it easier for people on mobile devices to read the news.

I’m also working to Bryan Hance of StolenBicycleRegistry/BikeIndex to implement a new stolen bike database that will make it very easy for people to list their stolen bikes and search serial numbers to see if a bike is stolen.

In order to implement these changes, I am going to spend the next two weeks working on the site as opposed to writing new stories. The site should be accessible the whole time, but you may get some funky looking views while I am mid-way through the redesign.

I welcome feedback and hope in the end the changes benefit us all.

With a heavy heart I say goodbye to TucsonVelo.com and hello to BicycleTucson.com