Introducing the Climbing Cyclist forums

I frequently receive emails from fellow riders asking for advice when it comes to climbing, how they can get stronger in the hills and where they should go to experience the best climbs. I really enjoy this interaction, doing what little I can to help people out in their quest to get fitter, faster and more prepared. But I reckon there’s a better way of helping people out.

As much as I love a good climb and exploring the best roads Victoria has to offer, my knowledge only extends so far. This is particularly true when people start asking about gear, technique or training tips. Often I simply don’t know enough to be able to provide a meaningful and valuable response. But there are people that do.

I ran a couple of surveys last year, one to see what you all like and don’t like about the site, and one at the conclusion of the Domestique 7 Peaks Series to find out how y’all found the series and what we could do better this time around.

One thing that came through in both surveys was the call for a forum; a place where people can log in, organise and plan rides together, share their favourite climbs and rides and talk generally about cycling. And going back to my originally point, a forum is a place that people could leave questions about all manner of cycling/climbing related issues and where people more knowledgeable than myself could provide answers.

So I went about setting up a forum for The Climbing Cyclist. You can get to it by clicking on the “Forum” link in the main navigation bar from anywhere in the site, or by clicking here.

As you can see it’s pretty sparsely populated at the moment — I’ve just added a couple of interesting bits and pieces that I’ve stumbled upon in recent weeks. But I’m hoping y’all will jump in and get posting, or at least have a look around and let me know what you think, what we might need to add, what we don’t need and so on.

I’m well aware that there are any number of great cycling forums out there and I certainly don’t see this evolving into anything even resembling a challenger to the Bicycles Network Australia forum, for example. But I do think it could be useful to a lot of people that are just getting into cycling, or looking to do more climbing, or people that are looking for great climbs, or people that are training up for a hilly ride like the 3 Peaks Challenge.

But, of course, all of this depends on whether you guys think it’s worth contributing to and spending time on!

Either way, I’d love it if you could take a look, register for an account (you can use your Twitter or Facebook account to save you having to remember anotherĀ set of login details) and let me know what you think. All feedback is appreciated and all constructive criticism will be taken on board!

Thanks for reading!

Feature image appears courtesy of Flickr user Oberazzi.

2 Replies to “Introducing the Climbing Cyclist forums”

  1. Would be good to have information on climbs but also segments of rides to be able enjoy the pain for completing and a for training and hill repeats… not interested in Strava type competition… but would like to be able to look for climbs by grade and length…. plus be able to load a route into a GPS for touring as well.

    FYI… A great reference for european climbs and in particular around Switzerland, look for http://www.cyclingthealps.com

    Great photos, route maps downloadable routes etc

    Also has a FB page of same name.

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