Moderators (requests and notices)

If rep was the only reason they stayed it would be a pretty shit reason.

It's called winter

Winter stops people using the internet?

There's a bike thread?

Are you thinking of taking up cycling again?

It's like running, only not awful

We always have had the lowest numbers in Winter, highest around the Summer equinox.

But... these numbers have been stable for a while, so it's the seasonals that we've lost... all the newbies.

This isn't too surprising. Cycling as an industry doesn't have the growth rate it once did. A lot of people who were considering it now have a bike rusting in their shed. Only a small % of those trying cycling were going to find their way to a forum, and fewer people are new cyclists.

The forum is no longer growing, but it's not yet contracting at any measurable pace.

Do you think that’s because the fixed thing has had its day? It’s all fatbikes and gravel bikes these days.
Or has the forum driven off any and all newcomers?

Post hoc non ergo propter hoc. A whole bunch of things changed between "arbitrary time in the past when things seemed better" and now. Which of those things contributed to a slackening off in community feeling or community growth, which are incidental and which are just symptoms would be very hard to prove.

For example, compass beers mostly died (or became private meet-ups among people who aren't interested in having strangers along, which is another way of saying dead because that isn't compass beers). Was that a cause or a symptom?

More to your point, there's definitely a school of thought on the forum that the move to microcosm, whether through faults in the UI/features or because it was forced rather than planned, put a dampener on some of the community aspects. Some people have suggested that TNRC numbers dropped because the new UI made it less likely that people would stumble across TNRC in the first place. Was that true, or was it just that key people driving its momentum moved on?

LFGSS is hardly a googleable term. And the trends are far from fixed and singlespeed now.

But I also think communication has splintered even more. Things like Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, local and club WhatsApp groups, etc... I'd need to really improve on the forum software to keep track of how people want to communicate about cycling.

I think the combination of trends in cycling, slowdown of cycling as a growth market, and changes in online communication all factor a little.

Looking around a lot of sites seem to be suffering, we're suffering less than others. And the place is still quite fun.

Forum name change time?

London Gravel Bikes and 29ers

Fun? Cycling is about suffering with glory in black and white.

communication has splintered

If I were speculating, that's the direction I'd go.

Ask a teenager today about Usenet and you'll probably get a good idea of what asking a 2039 teenager about Forums will be like.

Yeah, this is why I really needed Microcosm to get that funding. I knew we needed an app, a web forum isn't going to cut it. I can make the web forum feel like an app to a point, but we needed an app and then to slowly blur the lines between forum conversation and a chat/messaging app. We should have been aiming towards being a cross between Instagram and WhatsApp and Reddit. I kick myself that I knew this and couldn't convince investors who had already collectively moved on to biotech as the next big thing.

what asking a 2039 teenager about Forums will be like

Oi Grandad, save your breath. If you want to ask me something, use the neural network.

Think communication and contact after the forum has moved onto WhatsApp/Instagram etc.
Smaller more tight knit groups whose interests only intersect with the forum sporadically.
Once you’ve got someone’s mobile number or insta handle, why would you need the forum to keep talking.

Fixie has never been stronger than this weekend https://www.lfgss.com/events/4581/?offset=75

How about LHNWI?

All this being said... the core is stronger.

We send more email notifications than ever, and more of those are opened than ever (about 90% of all emails we send are opened and read).

Everything has it's time though. As soon as this place cannot financially support itself and people choose not to donate... it's done. Right now we get enough donations to keep us ahead by a month or so... and whilst quite a few people have stopped donating, a load more new people are donating. This is a good metric... because money is a great indicator of whether people value the existence of the forum... and they do.

LFGSS - The ugly version of RCC

What about 'London Gravel Bikes Transport Interest'?

We obviously need a unique initialism with no danger of confusing it with anything else.

Vulpine?

Disc Brakes Might Not Be Dead After All .com?

Just a small point about WhatsApp. They now restrict message forwarding to 5 recipients. Rather annoying for my personal stuff.

Dude, I've been on the forum since 07. It feels different and it would appear that the numbers support it too.

Thanks for teaching me about seasons though.

It is always in the top few results for most cycling related queries though.

The forum isn't so fixed focussed now though is it? We've seen the current projects threads follow the ever changing trends in cycling and perhaps even lead in a few areas.