Do you carry and distribute business card-sized contact cards when you tour?  If you do, have you found that they actually result in continued connections with the people to whom they were given?

I was given two cards this visit to Tucson. One was given as a leisure card. Bonny explained to me she no longer has a business card, it was a leisure card, because she is retired. It was thick, with a good texture, nice photos front and back. The second card I was given was a piece of paper in business card form/size. I added both people to my Facebook friend list. Bonny is one of my recumbent friends in Tucson, we definitely stay in touch. 

The piece of paper did the same job as the upscale leisure card. I love the leisure card idea. Printing can be done quite cheaply, I think I will try hading out cards this summer. It will be a fun experiment.

"Leisure card": great term!

Even when I was in the business world, I felt kind of sheepish about handing out business cards.  After retirement, I sure would not have considered handing them out while bike touring.  On my first multi-week tour, a guy came across the road to talk for a few minutes and then he whipped out one of those cards.  I accepted it but felt kind of weird about that too.  I didn't quite know what to do with it.  I thought I would throw it into the next trash can, but then I reconsidered.  I felt obligated to check out his blog and send a comment.  He never replied to my comment.

Three times while touring, somebody has asked me if I'm keeping a journal of my trip.  "Yes, I write an on-line journal" I'd respond, and each time I gladly wrote my journal address on a piece of paper.  I never heard back from any one of them. 

I don't know, maybe it's just ME?

I went through most of my career without cards, and even when I had them the nature of my position there wasn't much cause to distribute them.  So, it's not a deeply ingrained habit with me.

I don't know that a failure to leave comments or likes on a journal equates with it going unread.

Having cards easily available with the link to the journal on them can't hurt, especially if the cost of producing them is basically zero as it is in my case.

My guess is that other cyclists may be more likely to follow up than random citizens.

We do! We hand them to people who seem interested in what we are doing, they have our email addresses and links to our CycleBlaze journals on them. We handed out dozens of them in Vietnam and people liked that. I don't care if they toss them five minutes later, but we have had a few folks respond via email, sometimes a Google translation that might be puzzling but definitely gratifying that they took the time to make a connection. We do have friends that kept in touch with us via email from trips 20 years ago and some of them are still very close friends even if we don't get to see them often. We hand them out here too, if people want to know more about cycle touring or the locations we've traveled to. It's fun, cheap, harmless, and I am completely unconcerned what they do with it once it leaves my hand.

I created glossy "bike cards" with one of my favorite photos (my Ogre sailing under the St Louis arch) and sometimes I hand them out. I do occasionally hear back from recipients, especially other bicyclists.

Nice!