OK so as many of our regular riders know, this has been a long time coming. Several months in fact, although what most won’t realise is that it’s actually been a long term ambition of mine since around 2006/7.

What you see today, in January 2011, is the result of a complete redesign of the Muddymoles website.

We’ve been phenomenally successful over the past few years, building a large, loyal and very active readership alongside an ever growing number of people who have joined us for rides across the Surrey Hills. Not everyone stays but more often than not we gain another Mole who will join us regularly from their first ride onwards.

After nearly 7 years of gradual evolution on our website, it’s reached the limits of what is possible. After all we’ve very nearly 1000 individual pages on the website.

So, we’ve switched to WordPress for our publishing needs. It’s an excellent system which will allow us to do things with the site we’ve never managed in the past, but migrating those 1000 pages takes a bit of care if you don’t want to lose precious Google-juice!

The new layout is designed to try and show off our writing more effectively, as in the past once the article had dropped off the homepage it was lost to the casual visitor.

Now I hope any reader will realise there’s plenty to see if they dig a little deeper, which explains why each article now shows recent articles in the same category, as well as other popular articles. There’s also plenty to see on the homepage with our news, reviews, tips and ramblings better presented, as well as the ever popular ride reports.

Over the next weeks the layout will be tidied a bit. The index pages in particular need work and I may adjust some of the colours here and there too. But broadly what you see here is the start of a new chapter for the Muddymoles.

I haven’t had the chance to do so yet, but I wish you all a ‘Happy New Year’ and plenty of riding miles too.

Massive thanks to everyone who’s come back to our site time and time again, and to everyone who’s commented on our writing or contributed to our forum. Special mention must go to our site authors for their time and enthusiasm at writing reviews and ride reports; they really are part of what makes the Muddymoles so special.

Hope you like it…

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About the author

Matt is one of the founding Molefathers of the Muddymoles, and is the designer and main administrator of the website.

Having ridden a 2007 Orange Five for many years then a 2016 YT Industries Jeffsy 29er, he now rocks a Bird Aether 9 and a Pace RC-627.

An early On-One Inbred still lurks in the back of the stable as a reminder of how things have moved on. You can even find him on road bikes - currently a 2019 Cannondale Topstone 105 SE, a much-used 2011 Specialized Secteur and very niche belt drive Trek District 1.

If you've ever wondered how we got into mountain biking and how the MuddyMoles started, well wonder no more.