Foo - Geek Bike Fourm

Geek Bike Fourm (http://www.getfreeforum.com/forums/index.php)

I'm working on a bike forum. I'm still working on it, so give me some help, please.

GEEK

:cry: ....It's getting cold over here.... :cry:

The URL is busted. Besides, isn't this whole place a geek bike forum? I mean, we're sitting in front of computers talking about bikes...

http://www.getfreeforum.com/forums/index.php?mforum=geekbikefourm&act=idx

Sorry, works for me...hmmmm.

Geek

Cannot find server.

Yep, you're up.
Now Joe Gardner is probably going to beat you down with a spent studded winter tire for piggybacking his fine site, but...good luck!

No one is going to want to read it unless you have something compelling as well as fresh, new content on a regular basis. Start by creating a whole bunch of user names for yourself and then start threads where they interact with each other. Must have a lot of drama to keep people coming back. Have them argue, hook-up, whatever. Just do this to get the ball rolling. Once you start to get users, use your different pseudonyms to engage them.

And consider changing the name. Computer or technology message boards with "geek" in their name might work. Bike forums with "geek" in the name probably won't have much appeal to cyclists.

Might try running a spell/grammar check across that thing, but the real question is: Why?

Maybe you just need to make your site a little more unique. Seems like if you really want to make it a Geek Bike Forum it would be more tech/DIY information based. Then to get people to visit it you answer some posts with links to articles on your forum that way you aren't asking people to join but inviting them to check it out.

There's a fierce competition out there. The word of wisdom is here, "Number is power."

More members, you get more replies. More replies, more fun and more help.

When the new members don't get many replies, they turn to other forums where they get more replies.
There are few members in this forum trying to start their own. I became a member but hardly go there.

If I had an answer, I may start my own.

It's spelled S-A-F-E-T-Y :rolleyes:

OK. I went to visit. You need something to set you apart. Things look nice, but the words look a bit much like any other bike forums I frequent (that is, headers).

Geek is -- to an old guy like me -- an electronic age term. That is, geek is computer related. Geek turns me off (yeah, because I get sick of computers at work and elsewhere). You'll probably get a whole heap of visitors who are expecting computers riding bikes, or computerp-age technology that means they don't have to pedal.

Was your objective to set up a forum using particular software? If yes, well, you've done well. But did you consider which market you wanted to address?

Apart from bikeforums, check out bicycling.com's forums; check out the phred sites (there are like 10 or 12 of them, all very very simple to use); check out the myriad cycling sites on topica; check out cyclingplus in the UK; check out bicyclingadvocacy; check out crazyguyonabike which is not a forum as such, but damned near it for touring cyclists; and check out rec.bike... check out... well... you get the picture.

Things also don't happen in five minutes. Of five hours... or days... or months. It just seems to me you've come up with the idea of starting a major national daily newspaper lining up against USA Today... but without the angle.

Maybe you should appeal to the likes of some of the renegades here and elsewhere who love to abuse other subscribers and have been blacklisted. Start with D*Alex and pokey.

[EDIT] As a final piece of feedback, make sure your instructions on posting pictures are very clear. Only because you seem to have posted some very LARGE LARGE files on the Touring forum here that basically brought my little computer to a standstill. Not good for dial-up clients like me. It's usually the little things that kill a site.