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It's perhaps an odd question but in light of our plan to offer up equity in Singletrack World this coming September we've had quite a few people express to us just what this website, magazine and community means to them. We are interested to know if Singletrack means anything special to you.
We've been around for a quarter of a century and some of the users names we see day to day are the same ones we saw 24 years ago. Some people met and married through Singletrack. Quite a number have suffered and gained a lot of support through tough times on here.
Maybe it's less dramatic and Singletrack is just a part of your daily/weekly/monthly routine?
Anyway, as we build up to the big launch in September we'd love to know what all this means to you and if you don;t want to post anything here, our inboxes are always open.
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I love the content of the forum 🙂
Made me laugh, made me suffer Dusty Room Syndrome and improved my knowledge on so many subjects and topics.
Not just mountain biking.
Like a huge extended family, offering support, advice, aggravation and differing world views from across the globe.
Some people met and married through Singletrack.
Waves...
We met through the rides Pook organised in the Peak.. that he organised on here.
Been around ages, don't post tonnes but its always been a source of amusement, information and advice.
The support offered to people in a crisis is (generally) amazing. The P*ss taking is also amazing!
STW is defiantly part of the daily routine.
As above, I don't ride my bike so much any more but I find this forum small enough and very diverse for all sorts of things.
People with all kinds of knowledge from all walks of life keeps me coming back.
Sure there are some bun fights, mostly in the political threads, and I'm not innocent of that on occasion, so 'guilty as charged' on that count.
But I just appreciate the diversity, so I'm still here, like a bad smell, lol.
I'm not the only fruit loop cyclist. Sometimes I spot sage advice that'll shatter my beliefs but I still haven't got a wood burner or Audi.
Oh, the magazine should maybe have a little more lifestyle and ahem not always mountain biking.
Wasted some time reading on here over the years, with the occasional post, and would like to continue to do so in the future. Spent some money because of the PSA's and the old classifieds and learnt all sorts both bikey and non bikey that I wouldn't have otherwise known. Been a very useful place for me.
Singletrack started me on what has become a huge passion in my life.
Online late at night I stumbled across a forum that I liked and one day some fella on it asked people to help them make it a real magazine. I chipped in and was so chuffed to get my shiny stapled issue one; something I felt I'd helped to create (even though I hadn't really).
Then, as MartynS says, I did the Peaks Pootles which gave me a bunch of friends, and made me want to lead stuff. Keeper of the Peak was made from this site. And so then fighting for better came from here too. Cut Gate stuff? Started here.
Trail Pot? Started here.
Its been a pretty important site to me for yeeeeaaarrrrs. And long may it continue to be.
As I'm sure I've seen written on a mug somewhere, "came for the bikes, stayed for the bollocks".
The forum is a wealth of info, laughs, advice and good vibes, even where the arguments start (mainly because I can feet superior by not getting involved in them 😉).
On top of that, the actual mag stuff is a great read with it's different from the norm articles that would be really hard to find elsewhere.
It's the whole uniqueness and friendliness of it that appeals to me and although I'm not here every day I'd certainly miss it if I couldn't come and hide in here occasionally.
Singletrack mag is the only place I really read anything long form in terms of bike related journalism. Even after all these years I still look forward to it dropping into the letter box. It just needs Mint on the back page and I could give up my mbuk sub. Long live mbuk too, btw.
The forum represents a wide range of things as has been said above. Some funny, some useful, some moving. I'm sure we could all do without the name calling that some threads descend into but I'd wager it's worse on other forums.
STW has been part of my daily life since RHS insisted that I subscribe to "help some guys buy beans". He was right to do so.
I'm a relative newbie here. I took up mountain biking late in life and initially stumbled across this place when looking for somewhere to ask daft questions and read up on my new interest.
I soon realised it was much more than that. A fountain of knowledge on every subject under the sun. I still ride, but now spend far more time on the 'chat' than 'bike' forum.
I like that outside of a few contentious threads, debate is lively and intelligent often causing me to challenge and reassess my own views. I have fixed things, learned stuff, discovered new interests, travelled to places, made major purchases all off the back of sound advice on here.
It's 100% the users that make this place. The knowledge, humour, robust discussions and at times compassion and support. I see STW's role (they may disagree) solely as being the facilitator for all of that.
It’s a bit ‘special’ - like me.
I really do miss the functionally to see what I last posted in, to the point that I wonder if it was all a dream back then.
And the subscription, I do find it a bit of a struggle to justify sometimes.
And then I go to the dentist, and they tell me it’s £30 a month to even have a dentist nowadays and a few cleans.
And then it’s the people. My god do I love the people here. I’ve met lots and lots I haven’t met. Many don’t even hang about here any more, but if shit hit the fan and I needed help from a people I’ve never met, it’s here I’d turn to.
I bet you a quid if I needed help from escaping a volcano , a volcano specialist would pop up to offer help. And they wouldn’t take payment.
it really is very different, or maybe I am, from 10 years ago - but STW has given me far more than I’ve given back.
The Baghdad thread is a pretty amazing example of what the forum is capable of.
I bet you a quid if I needed help from escaping a volcano , a volcano specialist would pop up to offer help.
This hit me the day someone asked for advice on planning a hot-air balloon trip for their partner. Quick to respond was someone going "well, I'm a hot-air balloon pilot and..." and my immediate reaction wasn't "OMG, we have a balloon pilot on the forum," but rather "well of course we have a balloon pilot, this is STW, it'd be weirder if we didn't."
"came for the bikes, stayed for the bollocks".
I coined that quote. "STW: You'll come for the bikes, you'll stay for the bollocks."
I got a mug out of it and everything. Thanks guys. 😁
As for everything else,
It's a community. We'll butt heads and bicker like an Old Farts' Convention, but when there's a man down STW pulls together like nothing else.
It reminds me of... I'm no stranger to mosh pits at rock/metal clubs, pogoing to music and ricocheting off each other. But if someone falls to the deck there's immediately a protective circle formed whilst the fallee is hauled back to their feet and, if needs be, is taken somewhere to sit adjacent to the action whilst they recover. A rock dancefloor can appear brutal at first glance, but 100% we look after our own.
I know I can be a grumpy shitbag, the convenient excuse of me being on the Spectrum aside I don't suffer fools gladly and anyone can have the occasional bad day, but I'd like to think - hope, even - that I feed enough advice back into the system to offset me being a nob occasionally.
The magazine reignited my love of mountain biking and some of the best memories I've made this century(!) are due to that.
The forum? I could say a thousand things there but suffice to say, if I need an answer to something unimportant I ask Google/Gemini. If it's important I ask here.
(I'll admit to not spending much time on the website so I'll have to remedy that.)
Been here since it was all fields, subscribed to the magazine at the start. I now no longer read the magazine, or any other cycling mags, but I come back here everyday to see what's happening. I'd hate to see it gone. It means enough that a I subscribe to a mag I never read!
It’s a community, a generation
Overall though it’s the original AI . We’ll ok not AI, but it’s the place I’ve come to for decades to gain valuable information/ insight but very rarely relating to mountain bikes 😂
See every time I justify to myself that after all these years cancelling my subscription makes sense a thread like this appears or a cover photo like on my last ever mag that came through the door this week 🙄🙄🙄
"came for the bikes, stayed for the bollocks".
I coined that quote. "STW: You'll come for the bikes, you'll stay for the bollocks."
I got a mug out of it and everything. Thanks guys. 😁
I knew I'd seen it somewhere 😂
Very indirectly met my wife through here
(went on a Jedi skills day on advice from here, added him on FB. NowMrsTH did the same. At the time, tinder showed mutual FB friends on profiles, she saw that I knew Jedi, and thought I couldn’t be that bad, so agreed to a first date, 9 years ago.)
Met some amazing folk through my rummaging around for shiny, niche stuff, which wouldn’t have happened without STW. It’s kept up my interest in bikes, whilst riddled with injury and not being able to ride much, and also given me different perspectives on a wide variety of subjects, that have very much helped in my professional life too.
[checks profile for when I joined]Been around since January 2009 so when I was still in my 20s (just)! Seems a long time ago. Before that I used the MBUK, Bikeradar and SouthernDownhill forums mostly as STW was a place for middle aged people with beards who rode nothing but singlespeeds. How ironic...
What does it mean to me? Well you can't deny its a great community. I too have met friends through STW and used it to get countless bits of advice over the years despite only having a brief stint as a buyer of the magazine (whenever I pick it up its x pages of stuff thats absolutely, totally irrelevant to me). The fact its still here despite the endless website upgrades that gradually make it worse and worse is slightly baffling in the world of facebook groups etc where interacting with other people with similar interests is soooo easy. So why on earth do we put up with this place? I can't get my head around it or explain it...
I bet you a quid if I needed help from escaping a volcano , a volcano specialist would pop up to offer help. And they wouldn’t take payment.
And they'll turn up within 20 minutes of the thread being started! 🤣 It's like STW has a little klaxon reaching into all corners of the job market.
As Cougar mentions as well, the sheer diversity of people on here is incredible. Somewhere - in the dim and distant past, maybe even pre-hack - there was a thread on "what is your job?" and in amongst the "I do IT" standard was all manner of weird and wonderful careers. Genuinely impressive.
I'm not, honestly, bothered about the magazine - sorry guys - and I'm a print journalism sort of person, but the forum is a waxing and waning part of my day-to-day routine. It can be a massively helpful, massively unhelpful, infuriating, defuriating - that's a word right? - thing that's both virtual and non-virtual, hello Peak Pootles as a few have said. It's also a digital monument to the kindness of strangers and community, most recently Scotroutes who kindly sent me a hard-to-source trainer part after a post on here. And, of course, there's an extraordinary breadth of specialist information here.
I don't really do emotional soul searching in public, but I appreciate that it also has that function for a lot of folk and, when I feel I have something to contribute in those areas, I do try to. Good forums are hard to find these days and I pay the digital sub for the forum, not the mag.
A propos of which, I'd be more likely to read the magazine if the entire contents were simply accessible to members online instead of as a download, I'd be far more likely to actually read them. I know that's a finely nuanced thing, but after two decades of working in online journalism, that's how my head rolls.
Oh, and last but not least, as someone who is being held captive in his own home, by a small, hairy GWP jailer called Sprocket, I kind of love the dog thread.
I wish I could remember when I first signed up. It was pre-hack but no idea how long. Pretty sure I had some good advice about caring for babies and my oldest has just headed off to interrail around Europe at the age of 18 so it's been a while!
Advice, humour, arguments, sad times,great times, random facts and weird tangents. It's daily habit to have micro-breaks at work on here. Don't post a lot but read loads.
Long may it continue...
What does Singletrack mean to you?
It's a narrow trail that only one bike can ride down at a time, but that's not important right now.
As Cougar mentions as well, the sheer diversity of people on here is incredible. Somewhere - in the dim and distant past, maybe even pre-hack - there was a thread on "what is your job?" and in amongst the "I do IT" standard was all manner of weird and wonderful careers. Genuinely impressive.
Er-hem.
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/off-topic/what-do-you-do-2/
🙂
What does Singletrack mean to you?
It's a narrow trail that only one bike can ride down at a time, but that's not important right now.
I see what you did there. I think.
According to my profile Ive been aound since 24 Dec 2008, but it may well be before then.
I'm a longtime lurker an occasional poster on the forums and usually check them out regularly - almost daily espescially when one of the topics really interests me.
Much of what STW means has been said previously.
I love the views and information on the forums, it appears that there's nothing you can't find or get advice/help/info on.
Like many, I've purchased numerous items following recommendations from forum users.
I've been purchasing the magazine since I joined and really enjoy the content.
Its a community, family. It has motivated me to do things that I might not have done or thought about previously.
Long may it continue. I'd be gutted should anything happen and STW no longer be around.
Been here since 2006 ish I think, someone mentioned this place on snowHeads and here we are.
I don't ride my bike as much as I used to, but this place is a wonderful community and (as long as you learn to keep away from certain threads) is generally a really positive and helpful place to me.
It's helped me in so many ways, from booking holidays, to being hugely helpful when my wife had a huge mental health crisis. I've spent money I didn't need to, and discovered things I wouldn't have. And, in a much smaller way, I'd like to think I've given something back too.
I'd really miss it if it went.
STW was mentioned on a weekend riding with pals at GT ~21 years ago. Arriving home, feeling battered and bruised (I was riding a chameleon back then), I cranked up the shonky old lap top and registered myself as a user. What to use as a username? Sore_Tint felt apt.
Would think I've visited the site 80-90% of days since, its my go-to internet site. Sometimes the bike chat is useful. I walked past a colleagues' desk ~10 years ago, the least likely biker in the office. He was reading a STW page - oh hello, I said, what you doing on there? "There's some great advice on fixing a roof" he said.
I've bought and sold loads through the classifieds. I'd say at least half of my bikes in various states of completeness - hoovering up unwanted OEM Avid/SRAM brakes (who was the guy that sold me a "well used" pair of Juicy Ultimate "as-new"?), trying so many hardtail frames happened via Classifieds (landing on a Cotic Soul maybe predictably apt), a pair of 2nd hand Endura ST shorts are now on their second repair 15 years later.
An occasional personal blog site for biking adventures. Banal questions or observations. A knowledge base for niche bike component maintenance and even existence. Some arguing, mixed politics, a rich tapestry.
That's what it means to me.
What Singletrack means to me is best expressed in song
I've been mostly lurking since before the big hack. I came across the forum looking for info about obscure bike parts and stayed for the other chat. As others have said, there's an amazing breadth of knowledge freely given that never fails to amaze me. When there's a breaking news story, I'll often come here to see the discussion as it's less of an echo chamber than other social media (there's discussion and arguments, not a curated feed). And there's often insights that aren't available anywhere else.
Long may the forum continue.
13 years ago I came to get advice in classic "which bike to buy for..." style. Got some great advice - had a mooch about the chat forum, liked what I saw and stayed. I visit every day, mainly lurking, sometimes interacting and occasionally starting a new thread.
I've learned a lot about all sorts of random stuff. I've had some good advice on biking and non-biking stuff - it's much better than googling about eg probate or selling parents house (both real examples) as you get real experience from well intentioned people.
I interact less with the other aspects - always read Hannah's editorial, look at reviews and occasionally browse the magazine
...and recently, in a cyclical fashion, I've had good advice on getting an e-bike (older legs...) and what to expect from the experience. Now I'm a happy owner of an Orbea rise bought in my local bike shop. This advice is more than worth the small amount I pay in support
Been here since GoFar days.
To me it’s a place where I met some great friends, many who I am still good friends with and sadly some are no longer with us. It’s a place for knowledge on a variety of subjects, a place I have had many a good laugh with and other times frustrating conversations. Ultimately though it’s a place where I have made many friends and enjoyed a lot of adventures with. It has been that little family all from a sharing an interest in bikes.
Hotel California innit!
Well, the forum anyway. I'm not bothered about the mag, or most of the other content. Saying that, I did read the long term review of the Cotic RocketMax before I bought mine.
It's better than Google. 🙂
Haven't been on so much in the last few years, but it's still one of the subscriptions I think worthwhile.
BTW anyone remember the name of Stoner's book about his epic EU tour on a singlespeed Pompino?
(Member since before the big crash)
Will always remember seeing a friend with the first edition of the mag whilst on a ferry to France to go riding in Chamonix.
I think the reason I'm still here is the sense of community. You don't get that on other parts of the internet. It has the odd parallel with Reddit but you don't feel the same sense of closeness there.
Next weekend I’ll be bunging my bike in the back of the car and heading up to Scotlandshire for Duncfest, which has become one of the highlights of the year. It’s the bastard son of the Monday Night Pub Ride.
It’ll be a fantastic weekend, as always, spent with some of my closest friends who are all just brilliant company. We’ll be riding bikes and drinking beer.
I wouldn’t know any of them if it weren’t for the forum. Without this place, I wouldn’t be going to Scotland next weekend, I wouldn’t have had all those brilliant laughs at Monday Night Pub Rides, the South Manchester Massive night rides back in the day and countless other holidays, weekends away and just good times.
It’s not being overly melodramatic to say that my life would be far, far emptier and considerably less fun if I hadn’t bought a bike off a guy (Snakebite) 20 years ago who pointed me in this direction.
Theres also the genuine, heartfelt support I’ve received from forum members at some really difficult times in my life. As others have said, it really is a community
I’ve had a magazine subscription for 20 years, own quite a few Singletrack t-shirts and mugs and stuff. I’ll always keep my subscription as one of the best 40-odd quid a year I could spend, for what I get out of it
It has to be narrow and twisty...this motorway stuff on flow trails isn't Singletrack...
For here, despite all the arguments and disagreements, it is a great place to be for answers to pretty much everything. Plenty of support and genuine concern and advice/answers. A real community feel with loads of people from varying backgrounds having a chat about anything and everything.
Before I got into bikes I did a *LOT* of scuba diving. There was a forum called Yorkshire Divers which was a great place to hang out, not only for diving stuff but all sorts of other "life" stuff too. As I got into bikes I had a few questions and asked on YD if there was a similar site for bikes and some folks pointed me here.
That was in the pre hack days - I've since stopped diving but am biking as much as ever, YD has vanished but STW rolls on. So in short for me STW is the 2 wheeled version of YD - sometimes wierd, sometimes wonderful, sometimes argumentative, sometimes supportive, sometimes insightful, sometimes frustrating to use and sometimes even about bikes.