The Help Page

This page has a brief description of how to navigate in Ken Kifer's Bike Pages.

Organization

The site has been divided into directories entitled "The Cyclist Lifestyle," "Bike Commuting and Transportation," "Bicycle Camping and Touring," "Cycling Health and Fitness," "Bicycling Advocacy," "Bicycle Traffic Safety," "Cycling Humor," and "Links to Other Cycling Sites." A full description of these directories is found on the bikepages homepage. Suggestions for finding specific pages are given at the bottom of this page.

Layout

Directory pages and Articles are clearly labeled as such at the top of the page. This one says, "ARTICLE: The Help Page." Each directory page contains an introduction to that directory and a full description of each article in it. Both directory pages and articles are otherwise designed alike. At the top, each has a short description of the contents of that page or directory. In the left-hand column is a detailed list of questions answered on that page as an outline or review, and below the list of questions are links to all the directory pages. The right column contains links to closely related articles and web sites. At the extreme bottom of every page is a bar with quick links to all directories and, on article pages only, a second (and maybe third bar) with quick links to all articles within the current directory. Here's the layout in miniture:

LOGO	D or A: DESCRIPTION
QUESTIONS DIRECTORIES	ARTICLE OR LINKS TO ARTICLES	LINKS TO OTHER SITES
QUICK LINKS

There is also a mailbox labeled "Comments" for you to send comments, criticisms, corrections, or suggestions in the right column and on the bottom bar. Some comments have been published on a page written for that reason. I have changed the way I get messages. If you click on "Comments," a new window will open with a form to fill in. You must press "Send Message" for me to receive your comment, question, or whatever.

As an additional help, icons attached to most links will indicate the kind of information found there: general cycling , commuting , touring , cycling health , humor , cycling skills , bicycling surveys , and pages of mostly links . Non-cycling information or sites will have these icons: general info , safety , traffic , health , and environment . Some other common icons are the mailbox , the camera , and the arrows and (which point to the location of the current page).

Browser Problems

In revising these pages, I have worked to make them viewable with all browsers and screen widths using 256 colors or more. With Netscape 2.x, the pages will be entirely white but the columns will be unchanged. With Lynx, the columns will be gone, but the layout will still be very readable; some tables will display properly and others will not. I have used small fonts with some wide tables to allow them to be viewed on a narrow screen. A comparison indicates that the best browser is Netscape 4.x and the best screen width 800 pixels, but the differences are slight. You can adjust font size (under View on the menu) to improve readability or appearance and setting font type under Preferences can also help. If you have set your preferences to override my color choices, you are responsible for the results.

"Hidden" Changes

"Borrowing" Stuff for Your Web Site

Searching This Site

I created a number of directories in order to make articles easier to find. The idea was for each directory to deal with a different cycling topic. Nonetheless, some articles touch on more than one topic; for instance, the article on "Is Cycling Dangerous" could be in health or safety, but I felt the emphasis was more on health. The article on mandatory helmet laws could have gone under health or safety, but I felt it best fit in with advocacy, as those articles deal with cycling issues. In those cases where you are uncertain about where an article is or where you are searching for articles on a particular topic which could be in more than one directory, you can go to the Sitemap Page. There, you can either scan the articles and their descriptions or use the search function built into your browser (Control-F with Navigator; F3 with Internet Explorer) to hunt for any key word.