Links

Audax Australia
This is the umbrella organisation running long distance cycling events in Australia Their website includes a calendar of events.

Bikejournal
A place where cyclist can keep track of their mileage and any number of other statistics, as well as an attached forum.

Bikeforums
A set of discussion forums covering almost every conceivable cycling related topic.

Cycling Adventurer
The Cycling Adventurer has tossed in the structured life of an urbanite to explore the world by bicycle. A well-written site detailing how he came to cycling, and what he learned along the way.

Crazy Guy on a Bike

Bicycle touring journals from all over the world, including a couple of my own.

Johns Cycles

This is my LBS on the Gold Coast. While they cater more to the racing market, their service, advice and workmanship is the best on the coast.

St Kilda Cycles

Importers of all manner of things hard to find in Australia, including the legendary Schmidt hub dynamo & E6 lights.

Blogs

Bicycle-eye
Wonderings and wanderings out and about in Portland, Oregon, US

The Journey
The journey begins in Perth, Western Australia.

Lance Notstrong
The "other" Lance!

Ms Mittens
The Wired Cat on-line

Iron Gambit
.

Aussie Writer and Cycletourist
A blog chronicling the writing and cycling of a seaside baby boomer.

Up in Alaska
Jill's subarctic journal about ice, bears and distant dreams of the midnight sun.

The Kin Chronicles
Taking mediocrity to a new level of ordinary.

Allez
Riding and running with a vengeance.

London Cycling Diary
Pedalling across the capital since August 2005.

CouchPilot-2-BikePilot (Zin's cycling blog)
Living an adventurous life with Type-2-Diabetes.

The adventures of Crazy Biker Chick
... Including cycling, adventuring, cooking, knitting and ranting.

Redneck Espanol
The two wheeled Spanish redneck.

Treadly and me
"Work is something I do between riding my bicycle".

Crowlie
Womanist philosophy and theology. Cycling, climbing, art, single-motherhood and fire-twirling.

Adrian Fitch's random rambling.
A bit about cycling, a bit about genealogy, a bit about radio but mostly a lot about nothing at all.

Geo's big adventure
The life and times of Geo.

It's about the bike
Musings on the cycling life.

Spinopsys
Various cycling tidbits.

Industry Outsider
A blog about bikes and stuff.

Tweed Coast Treadly
An old man's bicycle riding diary.

A cyclist's life in Tenerife
(Canary Islands).

Bike to work to live to bike
It's never too late to get back on the bike

Stupid Hurts
Just the random scribblings of a guy with a bicycle

I'm not drunk enough for this
Really, I'm not.

BikeHacks
What can I say? Just read it.

Mozam's cycling adventures
A random collection of the things I like to do most, and mostly that is to ride my bikes, bicycles that is... My musings from competitive riding, long distance endurance to puttering around the neighborhood..

More cycling blogs

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Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Adios...

No, it's not the end of this blog (although time constraints lately... oh forget it!). I have, however, effectively said goodbye to a website that has used up a lot of my time over the last almost five years. It was in April 2000 that I originally registered for the bikeforums site that links on the left of this page (although I can't speculate on how much longer it will be there). In that time I've watched the site grow from a few posts a week to thousands of posts a day. Indeed, I was even made a moderator in December 2002 (God, was it that long ago?). However, there have also been other changes on the site that have been less benign.

I've often heard it said that on-line communities tend to follow the path of real-life communities. I guess you could argue that this has rung true here as well. The issue here has been the steadily declining civility between members on the forum over the last couple of years, but the last six-nine months in particular. My favourite times on this site came back in 2001, when my last year at university was particularly intense. I used to love letting off steam on the forums, having a few laughs with the other members, most of whom I called my friends, discussing just about any topic relating to cycling we felt like. Even in May 2003, when I had a bike stolen, I still appreciated the sense of community that the place offered. Even people with whom I disagreed on many issues could still offer a shoulder to cry on if you needed it. One guy even offered financial support to help me purchase a replacement!

These days, however, it's more about the arguments that simply an on-line place to hang out. Trolling, the use of multiple user-names to indicate "support", flaming of those who disagree, editing posts for content after "losing" the argument, cliques forming in different sections of the site, it's all happening, and while none of this bothers me overly, the problem is that I'm not about to expend time sifting through thousands of posts/day to read through it. I just have better things to do.

Now of course, some might be saying at this point "why don't you do something about it, you're a moderator?". Well, the fact is, there's only so much administrators or moderators can do on a site like that one. For one thing, nobody can read every post on a forum like that. For another, the sheer number of posts that would need to be removed or edited would almost certainly bring accusations of "censorship" and so on. Ultimately, I think a community needs to be self-moderating to a large extent, and when an on-line community reaches a certain size, this is not going to happen. Consequently, it's time for me to move on.

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