New year, new site. (Well almost)

Last year we surveyed our readers and asked what they wanted to see on Cyclingnews. You replied in your thousands and along with fantastic editorial ideas, two areas you wanted to see improved were the usability and design of the website. We spent the subsequent months working on a strategy to make those dreams a reality.

In the coming weeks and months you'll see the website undergo two phases of changes. The first – a small and temporary refresh – you can already see the start of, and we'll make a few subsequent tweaks in the coming days. For now, all we've done is cut down on the amount of adverts and moved remaining ones to the right. While the adverts that remain are bigger in dimensions than their predecessors, the total amount of ad space is just the same as before. But don't worry, we're not finished yet.

What's next? Well this is where it gets exciting. You can expect some vast improvements to the look and feel of the pages as well as some new features that will make the site even better than ever – a new and improved search engine, up to the minute news stories, teams' and riders' databases, RSS feeds, newsletters, substantially more video content and of course forums... which means 2009 promises to be an exciting year.

All that we ask is that you bear with us as we strive for these improvements. We'll try and bring you sneak previews along the way but rest assured that at each stage of development we'll remember the website's roots and where it came from and of course what matters most, you the readers.

Here's to a happy New Year,

Daniel Benson and the Cyclingnews team.