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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
UK based CycleChat forums have a touring sub forum.
Forums are not what they used to be, people seem to prefer Facebook now.
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?
2 weeks ago