The biggest Fil-Am Cycling Club now has an official website!

ADOBO Velo, the biggest Fil-Am Cycling Club in Southern California, now has an official website, http://www.adobovelo.com/ Prior to this day that domain name (which Vice-President Edgar Uyan reserved at his expense 2 years ago) was merely pointed to ADOBO Velo's vibrant discussion group in Yahoo Group.

The new website has been in "research and development" since it was mentioned "off-the-cuff" last February. A casual search for volunteer experts followed. A group of enthusiastic members who cared about this fun club then spent hours of free personal time and labor on the PC at night or at work doing trial-and-error web-creation, making banners, and digging though old Yahoo group posts, pictures, and files. It has been an incredible growth experience for them.

They knew what the club needed. It was the same things that they individually needed themselves when looking at the Yahoo group page.

Members always had frequently asked questions (FAQs). Add that to the new website.

Newbies wanted to know the routes. And we needed to encourage them. So add maps and photos to the website.

The club issues awards/recognitions at its events (Christmas Party, TdF). Add that to the website too.

There were various club affiliations, announcements, and more. Add that too.

Often we could feel we had outgrown Yahoo Group's features. But we cannot retire that (not yet). The Yahoo group still serves us very well because it’s our interactive communications line with one another. We have a lot of information saved there, and it will still serve the members with information we all need. The Yahoo group page is still a good place to post, as space is not limited. The lists and databases are still needed. We have a good amount of precious photos, links to websites we find helpful, files that we cannot just delete yet. The building of ADOBO Velo’s website wouldn’t be possible if we didn’t use our Yahoo Group! So to our Pioneers: Mike, Ben, and Charles to name a few, we are standing on your shoulders.

I remember that we just would ride together looking for an identity and organization. We needed a way to communicate easily (so we signed up in Yahoo groups), and we needed to display our colors (so we created the Adobovelo jersey/shorts kit). Now in just over 3 years, we are now recognized by other cycling clubs here in the States and in the Philippines. So in behalf of the members of the ADOBO Velos, I salute all of you for establishing this unique club, you know you’ve come a long way!

To transition into our new creation, it will be selfish not to recognize and thank the members who spent their personal time in this new venture. First of all, I would like to thank Mandy for researching available products and stumbling upon Google’s free website product, for trial-and-error in learning it, the countless hours he logged to create page after page, filling up the site with information, links, pictures, stories, article. Yet you won't see his name in credits. Do not forget about the Tour de Francis Blogspot he created a while back. Next, thanks to Manny Amit for the ideas, research and trials he also did. Doesn’t that make you feel good about having him as our member? Both Manny and Mandy also used their pro cameras to capture those precious moments! Not for nothing, Manny is an Art Director of Los Angeles’ famous news program... ABC7 News and he was able to help us to his full extent, for free! Next, thanks to Rosalie Kneebone (Cyclist of the Year recepient) for her countless inputs, help, and editing. If not for her, this website will only be from a manly point of view. So that balanced it out, for the good! And thanks to our recently installed Vice-President Egay, who was always there for suggestions, and was the premier thinker of this endeavor. To continue on, there's a lot more members who assisted one way or the other and if I missed mentioning your name, my apologies but thank you very much to these great people as this was a remarkable team effort!

Without our members, and the synergy we had even before the inception of ADOBO Velo, no one would have envisioned getting to this point. Back then we only wanted a jersey.

So there you are, visit http://www.adobovelo.com/ Give us your feedback when you have a chance and let the others know about our new thing.

- Arden Arindaeng