A couple of months ago Visit Manchester, the city’s official tourism website, launched HearManchester.com, a 10-part audio guide to the Rochdale Canal and Petersfield.

Presented by John Robb, the downloadable and streamable guides are entitled inspired, green, en-route, underground, unsung (which I found most interesting), radical, poetic, human, proud and industrial. Each part includes interviews with local experts - ‘ranging from city councillors to body-poppers, psychogeographers to popstars’ - and has a PDF transcript and an associated map, highlighting some of the main points of interest.

The individual guides have a physical trailmarker (such as the one pictured and this one) to encourage people to website, and the project is being promoted as part of next week’s Manchester Science Festival. The guide, produced by Northern Quarter digital agency StarDotStar, has also been shortlisted for a BIMA Award.

You may have already read about it, but today Kate Manchizzle and I launch a website we’ve been working together on: Rainy City Stories. It’s been fun flexing my web developing muscles on something creative and Manc-centric, and we’re both happy with what we’ve produced:

We’ve created an interactive literary cityscape that enables you to click on a location in Manchester and read a story or poem set there. To start the project off we’re commissioning site-specific stories from some of the area’s most exciting established writers, but you can tell us your own story too.

There are already four stories up from these commissioned writers - Nicholas Royle, Rajeev Balasubramanyam, Mike Duff and Jackie Kay - and they’re based around a good spread of locations: Moss Nook, Chorlton, Victoria Station and Whalley Range.

We’ve also had several submissions from the public, which’ll be going up very soon too. While it’s been mostly short stories so far, we’re also hoping for plenty of poetry submissions - and maybe even some multimedia stuff (photo stories, comic strips, audio, video etc). Click here to submit your own story to the map.

There’ll be more commissioned work added to Rainy City Stories in 2009, plus workshops and live lit events. If you’re interested in receiving updates about these - and in reading new Mancunian literature - please subscribe via RSS, email or Twitter.

Rainy City Stories is part of the Manchester Literature Festival, which begins next Thursday, and is supported by Arts Council England. I’d really appreciate any feedback, either as a comment here or on the RCS site itself.

It’s been a while since I last wrote about cycling but the Salford Folding Bike Race, which takes place on Saturday 30 August as part of the Salford Nocturne, is well worth a mention.

The competitors, dressed in business attire, will wait 10 metres away from their folded bikes. At the drop of the British flag the competitors will have to run to their steeds before building them as fast as they can and setting off on a four-lap dash.

In true commuter spirit, winner takes all - there’s no second chance when it comes to catching your train… Expect fierce competition, barging and even a little cheating as our commuters race to prove their skills.

The first incarnation of the folding bike race took place around Smithfield Market in London last year and attracted 5,000 people. Here’s a five-minute video about that event:

The field is limited to just 25 competitors, so if you’re interested - and own a folding bike - submit your entry form by 22 August. And check out the folding bike technology ‘row’ that’s developing.

I’ve been getting a number of hits lately for “zorbing Manchester”, something I mentioned briefly last September.

For those who think that rolling downhill at 60kmph in a giant plastic bubble is a Good Idea (it’s supposedly a summer pursuit after all), you’ll be glad to hear that the delightfully named Rushton Spencer, near Macclesfield in Cheshire, is home to one of 10 SphereMania zorbing centre around the country.

Call 0844 800 30 45 to check prices and book directly, or visit ExperienceIt.co.uk, which already has a price list online. This ‘South Manchester’ centre is the only location to offer zorbing in the dark (£65 for two people), which sounds even more fun/frightening*.

Check out Craig Hamnett’s Flick photo gallery (feature the above image of three spheres ready to roll), missixty’s review, Pete’s grainy mobile phone video from within a zorb, and a short story in the MEN about last year’s launch event for more information.

* Delete as appropriate

Always willing to innovate, I’ve trying my hand at a new kind of blogging lately - internetlessly. It’s been 87 days since I last had a connection to call my own, and I’m sure you’ll agree that it shows. Apologies, readers, but normal service will be resumed… soon.

In the meantime, and thanks to a rare moment online, I thought I’d put together one last Manchester round-up this year:

Manchizzle and I were so pleased with our Manchester Literature Festival appearance in October that we’ve decided to do another blogging workshop at 1-3pm on Saturday 19 January. Like last time, it’ll be a very practical session. I’ll probably be talking techy stuff while Kate walks us through the cooler side (style, content, readership) of blogging.

Again, it’s hosted by the Manchester Digital Development Agency (they’re a lovely bunch) on Portland Street - and this time it’s completely free. Book by calling the MLF office on 0161 236 5725 or by emailing admin@manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk.

Elsewhere, after it helped me out on a recent trip to Spain, I’ve returned to the Guardian’s great Been There travel website. This time I’ve decided to get involved myself, updating some of the 160-odd tips for Manchester (‘Suburb cafe is now closed’ etc) and even adding some of my own.

While Googling as Been There research I also stumbled across the Cube gallery’s architectural guide to the Oxford Road corridor, which seems pretty informative. It’s definitely one for a quiet Sunday afternoon, or a particularly energetic lunchtime.

BBC Manchester’s latest gallery, meanwhile, contains some decent shots at the moment: sadly I missed the sight of 500 santas jogging through Salford for charity earlier this month; sadder still, I did see the European Market’s new santa in Albert Square. How many years will we be stuck with this year’s model?

And finally, for anyone who missed it, here’s my favourite Manchester news story of 2007: Cool Cash card confusion, published in the MEN last month. Congratulations to Ciara Leeming for the ’scoop’ of the year!