General Cycling Discussion - bike forums origins???

i have a question for the aged and wise among you.

just how did this site get started, and just who was responsible for it? i looked around and saw that Joe Gardner was the first to join. so, Joe, is all this your work?

someone, please elaborate.

much appreciated.

-senor tomas

I will respond as somebody aged, and whoever's wise can add on to it.

It's Joe's baby, and I don't see how he manages it. He also has a full-time job, had major surgery that kept him off his bike for quite a while, is either attending school or preparing to (I'm not clear on this), and in short seems to juggle duties and tribulations in a way I can't even imagine doing.

Of course, he can get by on about one hour of sleep a night, and that helps. :D

He has a profile under "Who are you?".

Yes, Joe's the man, and a da*n good one!:D

Tomas, Yup, its my baby. I actualy started BikeForums for a few reasons, 1) most other forums sucked, i hated the layout, the ads, the spam, the lack of good topics etc. 2) I wanted to learn how to make a website, and i like biking :)

If you have any questions about the site, let me know.

Jon, you give me too much credit! I actualy just quit my full time job, I was having problems with my chest sitting down for 8hrs a day. Currently im doing home study to get a part time job for Microsoft (dont hate me!), doing Windows 9x / 2k support. Other then that, i spend most the time asleep, eating, sleeping, or on my bike.

Dave, i love you... :D

thanks Joe... I can tell that this forum will help me stay into the sport. Living out in the country, I ride alone and this is good company and a great source of information!

also the sight is well run and refreshingly civil... best wishes on your new emplyoment endeavor.

beblest

Originally posted by Joe Gardner
Currently im doing home study to get a part time job for Microsoft (dont hate me!)
No problem here--I'm not a big-time Microsoft basher. A lot of people seem to forget that if it hadn't been for Microsoft's aggressive tactics, there would be even fewer standards in the personal-computer world than there are--and things would be chaotic indeed. In my ideal world, there would be no corporations, large or small. But that's fantasy. In the real world, Microsoft doesn't come anywhere near the Big Villain category!

And some Microsoft software works pretty well--part of the time.:D

well, joe, congrats on a job very well done.

-senor tomas

If anyone doubts the commitment, here's a post I copied from another forum:



Re: Anyone else suspicious?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a webhost, and former CEO of an online gaming network -- I can certainly tell you that running a website is far more expensive then the typical user understands.

To give you a basic idea of what it costs -- a 45 megaBIT per second (DS3) line, on average, will cost $40,000+/- a month to have piped into your office. Now, obviously a DS3 line is a bit more then a small -- or even a medium sized website would require. But, once you start hitting 10,000,000 impressions/pageviews a month -- you're going to have to upgrade from those dual T1's and get a single DS3.


Especially on a site like personals sites. Not only do they have to fund the site, servers, facilities, etc.. But with new laws coming out in states like CA, VA and WA -- it's become incredibly expensive to operate an online business.

And what it really all boils down to -- is the internet is an unregulated service in the United States and service providers are abusing it. Graciously, they are abusing it.

That $40,000 a month DS3 line is only enough to give 40 normal DSL users the full capacity of what telco providers "allege" you will receive for $30-50 a month.

We don't even need to get into security, I'll just give you a link to a research firm where a 13 year old kid with a bad temper used some little programs a freind wrote to shutdown a business for quite a bit of time:
grc.com/dos/grcdos.htm

Here's another base to go by. I recently opened an online classifieds site, and here's a breif shot at what my expenses have been up to this point:

Scripting -
--- 4 months development -- 1 programmer hired on contract - $23,000

Graphics / Design -
--- Abused a freindship and moved a freind local from out of the US
--- Attorney fee's - $3,750
--- Salary for GFX Artist - $2,600 / mo

WebServer -
--- Dell PowerEdge 4400 Quad Xeon 700 w/ 4GB RAM, $9,000

Connectivity -
--- Dual T1 lines $2,800 / mo
--- One time Setup $1,500
--- Cisco router $3,200
--- Monthly telco fee (for the circuit) $500

That doesn't even get into the fact that by law we are required to have a physical business address zoned commercial ($1,200 / mo). Nor does it get into the seven workstations, other facilities required, and dear lord -- don't speak of the cost of advertising! We start our first campaign this Friday, at 7PM. Currently, we have budgeted $2,500 per week on advertising.

And we are a VERY small .COM. Very, very, incredibly small. Not to mention the fact that I, like very other .COM owner - lost over 2/3 of my assets last year.

A lot of the online bike community used to live at the cyber-cyclery, till it closed down a few months ago. They migrated here and to bikeforum.com
There are lots of other online forums, some much more venerable and aged than cyber cyclery.
When was the first online discussion of cycling? Probably in the early days of usenet. Anyone got a date?

mwmw, my costs arnt quite that much ;)

Michael, IIRC the newsgroup rec.bicycles was the first cycling group on usenet, opend in '88. Now i cant find that information for the life of me. I have seen cycling email lists that go back to '95.

I have been working on a script that will alow forum members to post in a few sellect newsgroups, like the old dejanews did, but better. Hopefully i can figure out how to set this up and have it running by the Aug update.

to mr. mwmw--

that is very interesting. i had no idea of the costs of a website like that.

to anyone else who might know--

so, just what does it cost to run bikeforums.net? and how does the little partner site banner at the bottom of the page generate enough money to pay for that?

-senor tomas

The partner sites dont pay to be partners, these are sites that have linked back to the forums and send us traffic and new users. The forum software cost me $250, hosting runs another $200 a month. Right now it comes out of my pocket, however it has come to the point that i cant really afford the costs, and i'll more then likely start selling advertising on the forums.