Assume I know nothing. Don't do Faceache,****ter, whatinstasnapbook so I may appear more stupid than usual.
Rides with mates usually involve 3-4 people and some hit and miss texts. But the number of mates looks set to grow (stealthboast) and there are a lot of local riders I chat to in passing who are interested in meeting up if/when their shifts/family/astral planes align.
So it strikes me that some sort of informal online format that people can post on to to say what/when they are riding would be useful thing to have.
Anyone done it? What platform did you use? Did it work? And at what point does an informal webchat risk becoming organised and liable for other people's stupidity and accidents?
Cheers
Join facebook, it's kind of useful
We have a Facebook group for one group and a WhatsApp for another. Both work well. Very easy to do. Can't see a liability issue if its mates and no money involved
WhatsApp for our little gang of four.
Oops!
And all four of you replied? 😉
We've a Facebook group for ours, now over 100 members.
Works well and far better than the old website forum and/or text.
Facebook.
Anything else is just being wilfully perverse.
Private FB group by invite only
Look up Teamer. App for sports teams. Send an invite (ride at 8, this tuesday meet here), people respond yes or no, everyone can see the plan who's in, who's not.
You only get one message, rather than, say, the first invite on Whatsapp then the whole gang chiming in with questions and discussions. Download the app to phone, or just sign up online and get text or email confirmation.
Works nicely. efficient.
Facebook is crap, but a lot of people use it and I've found it's been easiest way to organise rides.
So yes, FB, private/closed group. Never public as that's just chaos, plus you're advertising ride locations and bike purchases to thieves.
Invite or not, well ours allow requests to join but have to be approved. Allows us to weed out the obvious spammers and sellers, but keeps the option open to new people joining. Though one of ours does have a lot of people joining who clearly don't even live in the same country, let alone anywhere near local trails. Got another one that's more just a bunch of locals who all know each other which is better.
Not everyone will do FB though. Got one group who are okay with WhatsApp though (odd as Facebook own WhatsApp 😉 ). Still a few luddites who only do text or even email! (who has time to read through emails these days?)
Forums... tend to have died of death since Facebook. One of our FB groups came from a forum originally where rides were arranged, but it kind of died overnight. Went from one of the biggest 'ride' threads on a certain forum to nothing.
p.s. On Facebook or wherever you allow others to join... do not whatever you do allow selling or arguably stolen bikes. You'll get people getting in a huff about it, but both of these kill groups as they become like spam and people lose interest and leave. There are plenty of groups dedicated to selling and stolen bikes. The latter I have sympathy for but still I see groups with one after another post about someone's bike having being stolen in Outer Mongolia or wherever, that has no relevance to the group.
Thanks for the ideas guys
I really just want a group where messages are "I'm riding at x o'clock from y location. MTB, 20 miles". Just to try and offer a way for people who are in the group to see what people nearby are doing and when. That Teamer app looks worth checking out.
If people want to discuss something else they can sort out their own private systems.
There's also Meetup.com but I'm not keen on it as there's a pay element to it and it seems to just allow everyone to sign up and you get random people turning up you don't know. One group I follow plans away trips and I'm reluctant to go as I have no idea who these people are and I'm maybe even signing up to share a room with them for an overnighter.
On the other hand it's organised. Definite time/place, possibly for an away trip sort out money up front to get people to commit, and there's no random chat, just about the ride.
On Facebook however you can create events to do much the same thing, and can be private and invite who you want or allow those in the event to invite others. You could create a group that's purely about events.
We had one for a bit, and I am an admin on a non-cycling forum.
There are free forums but it'll cost a bit (in terms of hosting) to get one that will do email alerting/allow you to choose which software etc.
Beware the 1:10:89 rule.
Facebook - Closed group by invite only. Our groups actively deletes people who don't turn up to to ride unless they are entertaining etc. Specify that it's only to talk about rides..no fluffy kitten pics. A few of the guys don't do Facebook which is fair enuff so have dummy accounts with nicknames.
53 members in the NWAlps FB group, just by word of mouth really. started as i got lonely riding with myself or when people bail at the last minute, i figured there'd always be someone to ride with
I've recently joined a couple of local groups on meetup.com. Will be going for my first couple of meetup rides with random people from the internet next week. They may be weirdos, they may think I'm a weirdo, I'll hopefully survive unless it's just a ruse to get victims for a serial killer 😯
I don't think meetup.com is ideal for the OP's case of an established group / circle of friends, private facebook group would be better or that teamer app suggested above looks good. But for meeting new local people / groups to ride with (which is what I'm after) I think it has merit, depending on the activity/membership of the groups.