Other Bike Touring Web Forums - CycleBlaze

Bicycle Travel Forum

Other Bike Touring Web Forums

Jeff Lee

I'm aware of only a small number of web forums / message boards devoted to bicycle touring, and I'm curious if there are any useful and/or entertaining ones that I've missed. Here are the ones I know about (not counting this one):

1. BikeForums.Net Touring Forum: It's still pretty active, although I'm sure the number of posts is way down from 15 years ago when I first started visiting it. I find the tone of conversation there to be a little rude at times. I almost never post anything there anymore, but do check it once a week or so.

2. CGoaB Forums: I suspect most  people here are familiar with this one. It appears to be almost dead at this point, with only a very small number of people not named Neil posting anything. Once in a while I'll glance at the front page of the site to see if there's anything interesting and /or (unintentionally) entertaining, but I've mostly broken myself of that old habit.

3. Adventure Cycling Forums: Like the CGoaB forums, it's nearly moribund now.

4. Bicycle Touring Subreddit: Lots of activity here. I check it pretty frequently, post photo galleries from my tours every so often, and answer questions occasionally. Many of the posters are newbies, so you do tend to see a lot of repeated posts like this: "Hey guys! I want do my first tour, but: Don't you worry about someone stealing your bike and stuff when you go into a store or restaurant!?"

Are there any other ones worth checking out?

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1 month ago
Andrea BrownTo Jeff Lee

Facebook has a group called "Bicycle Touring and Bikepacking". The moderators are very good, shutting down trolls and abusers very quickly. There are thousands of members and a lot of activity and engagement. Not everybody wants to be on Facebook, and I get it, my own usage there now is mainly limited to my various arcane interest groups.

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1 month ago
Jeff LeeTo Andrea Brown

Thanks, Andrea. I had a Facebook account from 2012 to 2016, but permanently deleted it because it was such an addictive, and often rage-inducing, time-suck for me. Somehow I've been able to resist the allure of it, and all the other big social media platforms since then.

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1 month ago
Andrea BrownTo Jeff Lee

I totally get that, I find that if I heavily curate my social media experience it can have a lot of value and community but it took some learning and bad, bad interactions to find the sweet spot.

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1 month ago
Jon AylingTo Jeff Lee

Thanks Jeff. Other than Reddit (and here!) I also tend to find specific touring forums pretty quiet these days. The cyclinguk.org forums do have a fair bit of activity including in their touring and expedition section. They're a pretty friendly bunch, though it's obviously fairly UK and Europe-centric. 

Also for some reason recently they've been obsessed with trains!

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1 month ago
Mark M.To Jeff Lee

I'd recommend cycling uk's forum. There are some genuinely knowledgeable folk on there and I've learned a lot from the community. Not a patch on cycle blaze for journals, but the forum is far more active and there's a vast amount of searchable content already in place.

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1 month ago
Graham SmithTo Jeff Lee

Jeff the UK based THORN Bikes Forum is one I used to participate in. Not surprisingly, it’s mostly for THORN bike owners but the Touring sub-group might be of interest to you.

And I note you are a non-FaceBooker, but I’ve found various specialist, well moderated groups are good. Some I like have been mentioned already.

I’ll add that I’m active on the Bike Friday group as well as the Folding Bike and Small Wheeled Bike group.

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1 month ago
Mike AylingTo Jeff Lee

UK based CycleChat forums have a touring sub forum.

Forums are not what they used to be, people seem to prefer Facebook now.

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1 month ago