Changes to the layout poll

whyamihere

We've been doing a lot of thinking about the layout of the Road section, and we think we've come up with a decent idea for a new layout, so now we need your feedback.

The changes:

• The Race section will be replaced by Amateur Racing and Pro Racing. Amateur Racing will be for the races/TTs that you are competing in, Pro Racing will be for discussion of the professional teams and races. Women's Racing will be merged into these new sections.
• Road Gear & Know-how will be split into Workshop and Buying Advice.
• Sportives and Road Rides will become Road Rides and Riding. No real change here, just a slight repurposing, this will be where you can ask for people from your area to ride with in addition to the discussion of sportives, audax events etc.
• Soapbox will be merged into Campaign and Cake Stop. Cycling related topics will go into Campaign, and non-cycling rants will go into the Cake Stop.

Therefore, the new list of subfora will be:
FAQs
C+ Office
ProCycling Office
Triathlon+ Discussion
Amateur Racing
Pro Racing
Beginners
Cake Stop
Buying
Workshop
Training
Road Rides and Riding
Tour/Expedition
Campaign
Track
Special Interests

We need your feedback on the proposed changes. The changes are being made to make the forum better for you, so let us know your feelings.

COVEC

I like it

However, can you get the subfora permanently displayed below the ROAD header(and the other sections) on the index page? As it stands at the minute all it means is that you turn up at the index page and then have an extra click to get to the sections wanted. A good example is with the commuting forum which has only 2 subfora yet you have to access it from the index page.

COVEC

whyamihere

COVEC wrote:

I like it

However, can you get the subfora permanently displayed below the ROAD header(and the other sections) on the index page? As it stands at the minute all it means is that you turn up at the index page and then have an extra click to get to the sections wanted. A good example is with the commuting forum which has only 2 subfora yet you have to access it from the index page.

COVEC

That's how it was when the site first went live. Due to the sheer number of sections in Road and MTB, you ended up scrolling for far too long to actually access what you wanted, and it was very confusing.

If you only use the Road forum, set your bookmark to http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/index.php?c=4 and it will behave in the way you want.

TheStone

Looks better.

Could it also be an option to add Commuting back into Road?

And a handy 'Road - Active Topics' button would be good.

whyamihere

TheStone wrote:

Looks better.

Could it also be an option to add Commuting back into Road?

And a handy 'Road - Active Topics' button would be good.

Commuting will stay separate. For one thing, not everybody commutes on a road bike...

For the active topics, try this: http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/search. ... arch_cat=4

Gavin Gilbert

I'd suggest that it would be better to just drop Soapbox - historically it was created as a 'troll trap' but has caused no end of grief. There's no point polluting either Campaign or Cake Stop with the dross that's posted there.

And why has Track got it's own Board? Shirley this should be part of Race? The split of Know How into 2 Boards looks pretty pointless.

In all - it just looks too busy with too many options to me.

Tom Butcher

I'd ditch the triathlon bit - if it's to do with bikes in triathlon then it would fit in elsewhere - I mean if it's a training question for the bike leg where should that go - training or tri, if it's to do with buying a bike for triathlon that's pretty similar to buying a bike for time trials etc. So a lot of the posting is going to be relevant to all of us but is going to get a limited audience by sticking it in a distinct section.

Slow Downcp

Why keep messing? A lot of people, myself included, left the forum when it became Bikeradar as the new layout wasn't as user friendly as the old C+. It now seems to work well - although I understand the commercial pressures for wanting to add the Triathlon section.

A lot of people will read through all sub-categories within a category (I tend to look at road and commuting) - adding extra sub-categories will just mean the already limited search function becomes even harder to search.

Is this the reason that the forum has been very slow running of late, and quite often hanging for a few minutes at a time?

italiaandyf

there's no section for Audax/Long Distance riding. Audax and long distance riding doesn't really fall into the Sportives category, and it also doesn't fall under Tour/Expedition.

ridgerider

The Sportive/etc.....heading stands out as being a bit cumbersome. Might a change to something as simple as "Rides and Riding" be better, and cover Audax aswell?

Is there still a need for Beginners anymore, will they not be catered for in the remaining catagories?

I do not have a problem with the refresh otherwise.

Captain Fagor

Haven't voted about the changes, as I'm not really fussed. However, I would like to see an end to Rob Spedding's "Sticky" posts.

Gavin Gilbert

Captain Fagor wrote:

However, I would like to see an end to Rob Spedding's "Sticky" posts.

Amen to that

whyamihere

Ridgerider wrote:

The Sportive/etc.....heading stands out as being a bit cumbersome. Might a change to something as simple as "Rides and Riding" be better, and cover Audax aswell?

I do like that idea. I'll modify the first post to reflect it.

Ridgerider wrote:

Is there still a need for Beginners anymore, will they not be catered for in the remaining catagories?

I feel there is for proper beginners topics, so I'll be moderating it a bit more firmly. Much of what is in there would belong in buying/the workshop, and this will be enforced.

Red Rock

Tom Butcher wrote:

I'd ditch the triathlon bit - if it's to do with bikes in triathlon then it would fit in elsewhere - I mean if it's a training question for the bike leg where should that go - training or tri, if it's to do with buying a bike for triathlon that's pretty similar to buying a bike for time trials etc. So a lot of the posting is going to be relevant to all of us but is going to get a limited audience by sticking it in a distinct section.

+1

Red Rock

Gavin Gilbert wrote:

Captain Fagor wrote:

However, I would like to see an end to Rob Spedding's "Sticky" posts.

Amen to that

Was going to say the same thing myself.

whyamihere

By the way, the Triathlon Plus discussion section is like the other Office sections for the magazines, i.e. it's for questions regarding the new magazine. It's not going anywhere.

Eddy S

Gavin Gilbert wrote:

And why has Track got it's own Board?

For exactly the same reason why folks have been asking for an amateur road race section.

Jamey

Personally I think that all of the "Workshop" forums on BikeRadar should be unified into one to maximise the helpful replies and cut down on duplicates.

For example, If I create a thread asking for help indexing my gears I want the most possible answers, regardless of whether the other forums members ride a mountain bike or a road bike. Just because someone rides a slightly different bike doesn't mean they can't help me with my problem.

Buying advice is different, in that case I think it still makes sense to separate them but not for the workshop.

Tom Butcher

whyamihere wrote:

By the way, the Triathlon Plus discussion section is like the other Office sections for the magazines, i.e. it's for questions regarding the new magazine. It's not going anywhere.

Well it's not really cycling is it - if they start publishing a flower arranging mag are we going to get a section for that too - nothing against triathlon at all - why not combine all the magazine office sections into one - it's not as if they are that busy.

And yeah the stickys are annoying - except for exceptional threads get rid.

pneumatic

Gavin Gilbert wrote:

Captain Fagor wrote:

However, I would like to see an end to Rob Spedding's "Sticky" posts.

Amen to that

Yes, brother, amen, amen indeed! Absolutely maximum 3 stickies per section. Cake stop is currently far too messy with these things. Best ride, best bike, metric century, my commute etc. are appropriate for stickies; the rest must go.

SteveR_100Milers

I'm all for that, but thats no surprise! I dont see any problem with more "folders" its easier to navigate saves time flicking through uninteresting posts during a busy lunchtime.

spen666

The ideas re campaign, cakestop and soapbox clearly show you know little of the history of this forum.

Campaign and soapbox were created out of cake stop to

a) take rants and arguments away from the friendly atmosphere of cakestop

b) prevent cycle campaigning ideas from getting l;ost in the rants of soapbox


It ain't broken - don't fix it


Road Gear & Know-how will be split into Workshop and Buying Advice - so we wil have three different sections for getting advice ( there is one in commuting)

You seem intent on splitting up that which goes together and merging those which should remain seperate

spen666

BTW- nice fix attempt on the poll.

1 answer to vote for it, but 2 to vote against it making it easier to claim that more were for it than any other option

spen666

Road Rides & Riding-

surely riding covers everything- ie racing, touring, commuting, track,mtb etc- why create overlapping fora?

iain_j

I agree with spen over the naming of road rides/riding - it's a bit ambiguous. I see the issue with calling it Sportives - too specific. How about 'Road rides, Sportives and Audaxes' - basically swapped to get general 'road rides' first so it doesn't look so specific, but with sportives/audaxes so we know what the vein of the forum is.

I also see his point on the difference between campaign and soapbox, but in reality the threads are of a similar vein. A rant about something followed by a campaign to get something done about it. Merge by all means but keep it out of cakestop - keep cakestop for light-hearted banter.

Poss. merge track into special interests? It would be nice to have it all in with 'racing' but I imagine being minority 'special interests' they'd get lost in amongst the road racing topics. Actually i've always found it curious that 'track' comes under the 'road' category.

andrewgturnbull

Red Rock wrote:

Tom Butcher wrote:

I'd ditch the triathlon bit - if it's to do with bikes in triathlon then it would fit in elsewhere - I mean if it's a training question for the bike leg where should that go - training or tri, if it's to do with buying a bike for triathlon that's pretty similar to buying a bike for time trials etc. So a lot of the posting is going to be relevant to all of us but is going to get a limited audience by sticking it in a distinct section.

+1

Hi there.

I think you're missing the point of the Triathlon+ magazine... If there is going to be a forum to support readers of the new magazine, then I'd expect that training, equipment and race topics would cover all three aspects of the sport, not just cycling.

Hence better to have it's own forum. If not just to stop you guys complaining about 'flower arrangers' posting in 'your' forum.

Cheers, Andy

synchronicity

whyamihere wrote:

[*]Road Gear & Know-how will be split into Workshop and Buying Advice.

That's one of the 3 or 4 forums I hang out in and it's definitely a good idea... one that's needed imho.

bahzob

Didnt vote as like half dont like other.

Race: Definitely good idea. I like amateur racing but not yet another pro on drugs thread.
Road Rides and Riding: is too general a topic. Also since adding the Sportive description to the title a while back a significant number (majority?) of posts have been Sportive related. So I would leave this alone.

Think another sub forum is needed to post general questions that dont fit into any specific category. At the moment I post these into Beginners.

meagain

Not really fussed, altho' an ever increasing number of "chapters" could prove slightly irritating!
One aspect which will I suspect never be addressed is the large number of cyclists whose interests are neither "road" (sadly nowadays almost solely taken as synonomous with RACING bikes) nor "mtb" but BIKES! And never forget that such BIKE riders are the biggest category within the whole pedal cycle population!
I suppose leaving "Commuting" as is atands is the best that you can do in this respect.
Let's at least avoid the long-drawn out debate that, as I recall, accompanied the re-namimg of what is now "Special Interests"!

mididoctors

training and am race could combine me thinks and tri section too could get in a "am racing tri training section"

forget beginners they post everywhere anyway

skavanagh.bikeradar

Generally it's an improvement but I'd be strongly in favour of keeping Sportives seperate as it is now a type of 'competitive' event that doesn't fit into 'amateur race' - they aren't races and it doesn't 'feel' right in amateur race - but isn't some nebulous 'riding'. What I would do is call it 'Challenge Riding' so it can include sportives, audax, charity rides etc.

I'd keep 'know how' in one place too.