TCR

Looking for suggestions or ideas for our club website. What would you change or add? As an outsider looking in what is your first impression? What would improve it? Thanks!!

https://vvbc.us

johnny99

In your ride schedule, "20 to 60 miles" for "Beginner recreation rider to seasoned racer" is too vague. If you really want to attract real beginners, you need to be specific about distance, route, pace, and regroup policy. Also, include phone numbers for the ride leaders, so newbies can call for more info.

The first thing outsiders always look at is the ride schedule, so that is where you have to focus your effort.

TCR

Yea, that is pretty vague, huh? It's only because we're not real organized when it comes to the rides. We very rarely plan out a route ahead of time and what the heck is a "ride leader"? Basically we all just show up and the speed of the ride is usually determined by who shows. Last Saturday we had a couple "expert" mtb guys show up on their roadies. The group got strung out real quick and so much for my easy spin day.

We do have quite a few veterans in the weekly group rides that show regularly but nobody who wants to step up and commit the time and energy to organizing more.

johnny99

I ride leader is someone who will watch over your "beginner recreational riders" to make sure they don't get lost or in over their heads. I think it is fine for certain types of clubs to not want beginners on some or all of their club rides. If yours is that type of club, you should remove the "beginner recreational rider" wording from your web site. If you really do want beginners, then you need to be more welcoming, including posting contact info for people who want detailed information about pace, distance, hills, shortcuts, food/restroom stops, etc. Most real beginners average under 10mph and the racers may drop them before they get out of the parking lot then never see them again.

TCR

Good point, maybe the "beginner rec rider" should go. We want beginners, new people atleast, but not "beginners". Definetly don't want the 10mph avg person but we'll accomodate the 15mph average person for awhile.

johnny99

Unless your routes are perfectly flat, I think 15 mph average is well above beginner level. Remember that beginners generally do not yet have the physical or mental skills for drafting.

Extort

You could post a couple actual route slips and the times that it is normally completed in.... this might encourage people to try the routes themselves to see if they can match your times and want to join your group.

This would eliminate getting a bunch of 10mph newbies and would encourage other people that are more advanced to come to you...

Really enjoyed the Confucious quote!

Ostuni

good work. attractive. neat and clean.

personal preference: lose the spinning suspended bike graphic.

Jakey

portlandvelo.net has about the best bike club site I've found...

urbanknight

check out www.sfvbc.org they are one of the oldest and largest clubs in the LA area. Their rides have many common starting points so most people will know how to get there, and thay have route slips you can print out and clip to your handlebars, along with an excellent ride rating system that accounts for hills as well as mileage. My only complaint is that the rides from the standard starting point mearly weave all over the urban area, but that is where the club is based and it provides flat rides for beginners, so it's expected. But the club probably sees over a hundred riders each weekend from the various start locations, and every weekend includes rides varying from 25 flat miles to informal centuries with plenty of climbing and scenery.

j-dowsett

Considerably simplify your front page.

botto 

+1

way too busy i'm afraid.

Kenal0

Where is your club located? I am having trouble finding out where you are at. It does not look like Illinois so I cannot join but I cannot find your location. Now somebody reply to this and point out the obvious so I will feel like an idiot.
Kenal0

TCR

Hey, good point! I should probably put Southern CA on the homepage. I guess Illinois would be a bit of a commute for you.

TCR

Simplify? Does this mean it took a long time to load or is it just too big, doesn't fit on your screen?

urbanknight

I actualy didn't have a problem figuring out where your club was located, considering people who live near there are familiar with the Victor Valley, and your rides show cities like Victorville and Apple Valley as start locations. Then, if you're still not sure, there's an area code in the phone numbers.

'nother

My guess is he means it's rather "busy", visually. It's not just abuout fitting onto the screen (it doesn't), but about visual organization of the different elements.

For example, I would not have the "For Sale" stuff on the front page; rather, have a link to that area (it's not of critical importance for a first impresssion -- that's what you want to have on the front). Also, the "news", I would not put the whole article on the front page, but maybe a teaser/headline that links to the rest of the content. Stuff like that. You may want to ask around your group, see if anyone has (or knows someone with) graphic design experience, in particular web design which is a specialization of graphic design.

HWS

I agree. It's nice to be able to get a sense of your club from a brief scan of the homepage. The less I have to navigate a website the better.

One suggestion would be one of those small banners that gives the current weather.

SaddleBags

OK, just a couple of suggestions:

Simplify your homepage.
- Get rid of the for sale section and make it a link
- 86 the poll and definitely the spinning bike (annoying)
- Move your ride info to the RIDES page
- Nice photos but keep them on the PHOTOS page
- If you do have to use tables, get rid of the border
- Good idea to keep the sponsors on the homepage (especially the foot massager)
- If you have recent news (ie Jersey Update), write a sentence or two and then have a "continue" or "more" link and direct the user to a page with that content (ie Club Information)

Other Suggestions:
- Add information on "How To Join"
- The Forum is nice, but the most users online was 11. It'll be handy when your club grows but can be an added expense you are paying your ISP.
- If your club enjoys fat tires/off roading too, then create the Mountain Bike page in a similar design. Currently it is someone's personal Tripod account.
- You can add a weather icon but keep it off the front page, maybe in the RIDES page. But do you really need it? It's SoCal - isn't is sunny and 85 every day except the 10 days a year it rains?

Good luck on your club and keep us posted!

Little Darwin

First and foremost, (after browsing the site and reading this thread) your club needs to define their focus. Your club does not seem to be promoting cycling, it is promoting fast cycling. I had this impression in a mild way from browsing the site, but your responses here have underscored that I was truly seeing an element of elitism... and elitism isn't meant here in a bad way, just don't advertise yourselves as the club for everyone. If you want to be a club with an objective of always averaging 20 MPH, but will give some allowance if someone isn't quite up to par yet, then more power to you.

Frankly, with the paces you publish, I would be dropped immediately after your warm-up, but can do 30 miles pretty easily... and possibly more if I learned how to draft or ride in a group. I am unable to find a club I would like to ride with because they all publish average speeds I can't maintain.

I truly believe that a major weakness of current cycling clubs is their lack of support and mentorship of sub-standard riders.

Your club (based on what I see) isn't for everyone, it is for racers and folks that want to hang out with racers... beginning and recreational riders should truly be accomodated, or you should be honest.

Second, I do agree that the rides are among the first things looked at... but close behind it for me is to find out what the requirements and benefits of joining the club, which implies that I should be able to figure out how to join. If you have any information online I didn't see it, and I spent about the amount of time I would checking out a club's site if I were interested in joining one in my area.

Some items I have seen are dues/membership fees and negotiated discounts at bike stores etc.

You do have some good information, and other than offering virtually nothing for beginners and recreational riders, the general feel represents the type of cycling club I would find interesting... so for general tone, I would give you a thumbs up!

Ostuni

ideally you would want to have more of the essential info 'above the fold', i.e. viewable w/o scrolling down...

try for this goal: make your club's home/welcome page display at 800x600 w/o horizontal or vertical scroll bars....

TCR

Who uses 800 x 600? I use 1280 x 1024.

TrekDen

The best way to improve one's club website, is to borrow ideas from other clubs websites. I'll add links to a couple I belong to below, for anyone who is interested in looking in. Both clubs are very organized, as are the rides on the schedule. I'm not saying these are the best website's out there, but they are worth a look at for ideas.

Denny

https://www.wpwbikeclub.org/index.html

https://www.crcyclists.org/

recursive

Drafting really doesn't have much of a noticeable effect at 15mph, so if you can ride 15mph in a pack, you can probably do it solo too.

As for the site, I disagree with the comment that was made above stating that the less navigation required the better. Certainly decreasing navigation is a worthy goal, but if it is acheived at the cost of visual confusion, then I am not so sure it is worth it. I certainly wouldn't call it bad, but I think the front page can be streamlined.

botto 

You've got way, way, way too much info and text on the front page.

Start with something minimal - image and a sidebar with links perhaps?

Here's some examples of other clubs/teams sites. some work better than others, but they're all clearer than what your club currently has:

here's a team site, this isn't the opening page, but the home page, which is still cleaner than yours crca-conrads

here's a slightly busier page, but still not bad (it's a club) crca

these are far from top design, a little busy, but do the job

wtc de amstel

ERC

olympia

Last but not least, a site where they've taken some time, and even added some bells & whistles

cogwild