Bike Forums.net community is a fantastic source of cycling and bicycle mechanics knowledge. It stands alongside legendary resources like Sheldon Brown website (my article about Sheldon Brown) and Park Tool repair page in terms of value and depth.
There are many knowledgeable experts there who generously share their experience.
I’ve been an active member for well over a decade. Over the years, I went from asking questions to being able to help others – and in the meantime, I created my own resource: bike.bikegremlin.com (this very site) – a site built to share useful, experience-based cycling info.
However, that didn’t sit well with a few forum members, as shown in this thread:
Bad info in high Google results
Soon after, I created a second thread to address concerns raised in the above-mentioned thread, and invite fact-checking – but it was also met with disapproval:
Hydraulic brake fluid article feedback
Since then, I’ve scaled back my participation on Bike Forums. I still post from time to time and continue to recommend it as a valuable resource – but when someone specifically wants a reply from me, I now point them to my own forum: bikegremlin.net.
With limited time and energy, I focus on spaces where thoughtful exchange is likely, and where I can provide the most value (how I organise and share my knowledge).
It’s also important to stress:
- People get good and correct responses on Bike Forums, with or without my participation.
- Thanks to it being a community – and on the Internet – you are very likely to be corrected if you say something inaccurate (peer-reviewed, pretty well, most of the time).
- It’s easier for me to keep track of new questions on my own forum than on Bike Forums. I often direct people to BF and then completely miss their question. On my forum, I can still answer practically every question (there aren’t dozens of new ones every day).
P.S.
I wrote a forum post explaining why I’ve practically completely stopped answering questions on social networks:
https://www.bikegremlin.net/threads/why-i-answer-questions-on-bikegremlin-forum-only.497/
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