Boards penetration among road bike community

jimm

Ok, first of all, to those filthy minds out there, get that image out of your head

Whenever I strike up a conversation with a road bike riding total stranger, I often ask the question "Are you on Boards?" Sometimes I get a defensive stare back, as if I had asked "Are you on performance enhancing drugs?" Or more often the usual reply is "No, what's that?"

So, the question is, what is the level of awareness of Boards.ie among roadies?

Just wondering, that's all.

kenmc

jimm wrote: »

Ok, first of all, to those filthy minds out there, get that image out of your head

Whenever I strike up a conversation with a road bike riding total stranger, I often ask the question "Are you on Boards?" Sometimes I get a defensive stare back, as if I had asked "Are you on performance enhancing drugs?" Or more often the usual reply is "No, what's that?"

So, the question is, what is the level of awareness of Boards.ie among roadies?

Just wondering, that's all.

what's boards.ie?

Captain Havoc

The images of beauty thread has replies from 595 individual posters.

Beasty

Well I'm hoping that every roadie who responds in this thread is aware of Boards;)

I have a pretty good idea that getting on for a third of those who've ridden the Swords League over the past couple of years are Boardsies, and a good few more lurk. I would guess there is a general awareness amongst racers, as I suspect it's the main forum in Ireland where we get to talk about cycling in general and road racing in particular. There has definitely been a pick up on the forum in recent times, and I would also guess that there are quite a few who have taken up racing on the back of what they've seen here

I'm not so sure of the penetration at the Sportive or general fitness/commuting level though - I would imagine there is a bit less that attracts such cyclists. I suspect at that level it's more a case of people who are familiar with Boards at a more general level who dip into the forum when they feel the need/desire.

Cookie_Monster

zero for anyone I've ever gone cycling with before regularly tbh. (before I left Irl)

sheepfield

The "penetration" of which you speak is mostly confined to A4 racing I reckon, although regular posters who also race at other grades are obviously "on board" if I can say that. I dont think this is the main forum for bike racing discussion: serious operators work via twitter etc, Maybe it is useful for noobs and average joes, but it is fairly low down the pecking order in importance among the more leading riders. It gives a forum for the odd rant from a disgruntled guy who didnt get to win, as well as a chance to exchange ideas, but really, it doesn't set any real agenda on the cycling map if you ask me.

ednwireland

6900 cycling ireland members, loads more cyclists in various organistions, plenty in none

currently 175 people on the cycling forum

does that tell you anything

Dermot Illogical

ednwireland wrote: »

6900 cycling ireland members, loads more cyclists in various organistions, plenty in none

currently 175 people on the cycling forum

does that tell you anything

It's 11 at night and the weather is sh1te, so is the answer that there are currently more cyclists on boards than bikes?

dancecatz2000

The more you tell, the more there can be,

Lumen

I doubt there's much "penetration" of boards into most aspects of Irish life which are not innately dorky. For many people the internet is Facebook; the idea of discussing things with pseudonymed strangers probably seems a bit weird.

Twitter makes far more sense to people at the top of the sport as it's international, based on real identities, more "push" oriented and better integrated with mainstream media.

Twitter is for telling the world what you think. Boards is for discovering what other people think.

seamus

I still go out on club spins in my boards jersey (club jersey only arrived last week) and most of the time at least one person will comment. If there's a group of ten, I'd meet probably one person who uses boards regularly (think I met rottenhat one day) and 2 or 3 more who'll say, "Yeah, I'm on boards but I don't post very much".

Everyone else either hasn't heard of it or says, "I've heard of it but I don't know what it is".

CramCycle

seamus wrote: »

Everyone else either hasn't heard of it or says, "I've heard of it but I don't know what it is".

Generally people I know refer to boards as that irish place google gives you to get answers to stuff.

Hungrycol

CramCycle wrote: »

Generally people I know refer to boards as that irish place google gives you to get answers to stuff.

That's so true! Only the other day my Triton shower went on the blink and I put in a Google search for what might be wrong with it and boards DIY came up. It suggested (back in 2009) unscrew this, clean that and bleed the thingymibob and hay presto had it back working. Thank you boards DIY

el tel

Really good riders, a1 a1 maybe a3 cats mostly seem not to waste time on messageboards, theyre too busy training racing and winning for shooting the breeze with all on sundry here.

I agree with lumens sentiment below. Top riders will have their owb outlet, Twitter, blog etc.

hardCopy

I know so many people who use boards for this purpose but won't register to ask a question themselves and some who lurk for years without even registering.

dermur

I'd say there must be a fair few unregistered boardsies out there. I was one myself for ages until I had to register to buy a set of second hand wheels!

Even now, I suppose posting only once or twice a month makes me a lesser spotted boardsie...

Holyboy

OP, what do you mean by "roadie"? Some one who races or just rides a road bike a lot? In the last year I have met a huge amount of road cyclists some who race and some who just ride stupid distances for pleasure! I would say about half would be "boardies" and a third would have seen some of my posts or other peoples posts about me on here but would not post them selves. But in only the last couple of weeks I have realised its not really the place where the serious race chat goes on as far as I can tell anyway,not that I know all that much about it all! I had two customers that placed yesterday in a race, one boardsie and one not but that was nice, in my head it was all down to me and not them:)

jimm

Holyboy wrote: »

OP, what do you mean by "roadie"? Some one who races or just rides a road bike a lot?..........

Just rides a road bike, whether it be competitive or just recreational.

Was chatting to a few cyclists at various sportives, cafe stops, etc. and I would estimate that the level of awareness of this particular forum and Boards in general was around 50%.

Your anecdotal evidence may differ.

capnsantini

Would it be possible to find out how many Strava users are based in Ireland, and compare that with how many Strava users list Boards.ie as one of their clubs?