Expanding the Adventure Motorcycle Section

[Scott Brady]

As the activity of the Expedition Motorcycle section has increased, we are looking for ways to help organize the threads and better support the discussion. Just like the 4wd sections expanded many years ago, we are looking to do the same in this forum. Instead of just making the change, we would like to get some feedback from the members that use this section the most. The moderator team has already discussed a bunch of options, and we have settled on this recommendation. In general, I believe this will be the direction we will take initially, but we do appreciate any suggestions, tweaks or changes to the descriptions.

We have also found that many of the discussions are started by new riders, riders with their first ADV moto and many 4wd enthusiasts interested in getting started with ADV motos. We would like to include a section specifically for new riders or riders new to longer distance travel with bigger bikes. We will give a few days for the discussion and then start implementing the new sections as time allows.

Thanks for your feedback and participation.

Recommended Sections:

1. Adventure Motorcycle Talk: General Discussion, News, Videos, etc.

2. Getting Started: Your first bike, questions, feedback, technique and training

3. Adventure Rider Gear: (Helmets, protection, boots, luggage, camping equipment, etc.)

4. Adventure Motorcycles: 800cc+, multi-cylinder adventure tourers

5. Light and Fast: Thumpers and other lightweight dual-sport motorcycles

6. Sidecars: Ural and other Hacks

 

[FloridaFJ80]

Scott, I like the recommended sections, one thing that I would like to see is maybe some places to ride or routes or people to ride with. Being that I am a begineer would be nice to see areas in my neck of the woods (South East) where I can go out and ride.

 

[Ozrockrat]

How about a "Garage" section for mods (lighting, intercom, storage) equipment (workshop, tools, trailers) etc that covers all the stuff that is not specific enough for the bike specific groups but not just general conversation.

Must have 2 stickies: a link to your tire test in OJ and another one with the rules "no oil or tire threads"

Oh and the title for the sidecar section should be "BMW sidecars or their outdated copies"

 

[Scott Brady]

Oh and the title for the sidecar section should be "BMW sidecars or their outdated copies"

HA! Well played.

 

[Scott Brady]

Scott, I like the recommended sections, one thing that I would like to see is maybe some places to ride or routes or people to ride with. Being that I am a begineer would be nice to see areas in my neck of the woods (South East) where I can go out and ride.

Great suggestion. Maybe we can try that in the "getting started" first, and see how the conversation goes. If we need to add a more regional, or ride-specific section, we can evaluate it after the initial category start-up.

 

[Scott Brady]

How about a "Garage" section for mods (lighting, intercom, storage) equipment (workshop, tools, trailers) etc that covers all the stuff that is not specific enough for the bike specific groups but not just general conversation.

This is a good suggestion, and we might change the "Rider Gear" to "General Rider Gear and Equipment" to cover all of the items not specific to a class of motorcycle.

 

[taco2go]

Great ideas- particularly the Getting Started and Garage Sections





.........maybe eventually a Not So Light and Not So Fast section for us single cylinder Quasi-ADV riders

 

[Scott Brady]

DIG that C5 Joash. Such a sweet ride. I could easily see a vintage (and vintage styled) section in the future.

 

[taco2go]

Thanks Scott- I'm very new to mild off pavement riding, and have always loved REs, quirks and all. It'll make a mechanic out of me yet.
You have to get one. Just for the sound.
May not get me to Mexico at 80 mph, but even the post office run is like listening to Jaco Pastorius thumping on his bass.

 

[Cabrito]

Is expanding the forum really the way to go or could this be done with the addition of a few more Stickies? Is there that much activity for the MC stuff to warrent all these sections? My knee-jerk reaction is that it would make it cumbersome to check out all the bike stuff.

 

[Deleted member 9101]

Street bike section?

 

[Cody1771]

Adventure motorbikes 800cc+? maybe 650+ because that puts a few bikes in an awkward position, i wouldn't consider the Vstrom 650 or the Honda NC700X a "light and fast" bike.

 

[MarcFJ60]

I wouldn't expand it much . . .

I would be pretty conservative on expanding the motorcycle section. I'm not against it and like the idea of some general subsections. But it isn't an overly busy section to begin with and expanding it to too many subforums may have the effect of really slowing down the daily posts. I actually think that would slow the growth rather than expand it. There's nothing worse than posting a question on a forum where you notice nobody has posted in several days. You may note, only 4 threads in this section have been updated today.

In addition, I would suspect most posters here are also aware of/members of ADVrider. Given the size of their bike specific knowledge base, I would leave a lot of the minutiae to them until the forum here grows. That said, this forum tends to be more cordial and I think a lot of discussions would work well here. So I would suggest something more along the lines of:

Getting Started (I think Expo may actually be a better place than ADV for this)

General Motorcycle Talk

Gear/Equipment/Mods

Ride Reports

I'd like to see a "Garage" section as well, but I'm just not sure it is warranted. I would keep those discussions under the General motorcycle talk until that section shows it needs to be expanded (i.e. threads moving off the front page within a day).

Honestly, if you want to grow the section, I think it needs to be a bit more prominent on the main page. It's the 29th section down in the forum - below Sportsmobiles and Unimogs! Maybe the main sections should be defaulted to minimize (I actually didn't realize you could manually do it). I think encouraging Ride Reports specifically to the motorcycle section or cross posting from "Completed Adventures" would help too.

 

[southpier]

I didn't see Jomomma listed?

 

[Scott Brady]

Great suggestions Marc. From our experience, it seems to be a chicken/egg situation. We added a Mitsubishi forum just a few years ago based on user feedback, and it now has 1,000 threads and nearly 15,000 posts.

I am glad you like the "Getting Started" concept too. I think it will be an enjoyable section. There seems to be both very experienced traveler/riders and quite new riders in this group. The experienced riders also tend to be serious travelers, using all forms of machine to embark on the adventure.