One of the most exciting things we’ve seen in ages for bike touring just landed in our mailbox: mini contact cards from Moo, an online printing company that ships from the UK, the U.S. and Europe.

At first glance, you might wonder what’s so exciting about that. Business cards are hardly new. But these ones are great for many reasons. In addition to being stylish and personal, they are also very small. They measure less than half the size of a normal business card, which means you can easily put 100 in your handlebar bag and hardly notice them.

Here’s what else we love about our Moo cards:

• They’re personal. We put our own photos on one side of the cards.
• There’s lots of variety, with up to 50 different photos in each pack.
• The online order system is intuitive.
• Delivery is speedy. Our cards came within a week, faster than promised.

Picking out which photos to use is especially easy. If you have photos on flickr, Moo can connect to your albums and let you select and crop the photos you want to use. You can also upload your own photos from your computer. We chose the second option and were pleasantly surprised at how quickly the photos were uploaded.

Cards come in packs of 100 and depending on how many photos you upload, you’ll get several of each design in each pack.

Once you’ve picked your pictures to go on the front of the cards, it’s time to choose the text for the back of the card. You can have up to 6 lines of text, less if you decide to also put a small graphic on this side as well.

When you’ve finished your order, you have a couple hours to make changes before the printing process begins. I got an immediate confirmation of my order and was promised delivery to the Netherlands within 10 days. Moo delivered a few days earlier than we expected. The cards were well packed and even came with a small, sturdy box that would be fine for protecting about 150 cards inside a pannier.

Now, with the cards in our hands, we’re impressed with the quality. The paper is thick and sturdy. The colours are stunning. Everyone we show the cards to has a positive response. Their instinct is to grab more than one – making these cards a great way to promote your bike touring blog, as well as simply swapping emails with friends you meet along the way.

I think what we like most about the Moo cards is just how fun they are. There’s something really satisfying about flipping through the different photos from past bike tours and other travel adventures. It’s a little like picking out candy when there’s a whole shelf full of sweet-filled jars to choose from.

For the price – about $0.12 each for our order of 400 mini cards – we think they’re perfect and highly recommend them.

Moo also do stickers, greeting cards and other fun products. Check it all out on the Moo website.