Should we have a sub-forum for Guided Tours?

[CraftGeek]

Hi,

I just signed up for one of the Guided Tours and was searching the forums for others who had, or were planing to, take this tour. To my surprise, I found nothing.

Then I started searching for any info related to any of the other Guided Tours. I found some references, but no real info.

There is no place on the forums where someone can browse the experiences of veterans of the guided tour they may be interested in. Since a large part fo a tour are you fellow riders, it would be great to get to know them first.

I know I could start a thread here about the tour I'll be taking but after a while it will be buried by the general discussion. Someone coming along next year who may be undecided whether it is worth the money would never see the posts that would grow out of a successful guided tour and may deside to spend their money elsewhere.

If the profits from the guided tours benefit the ACA, shouldn't we make the place for them on the forums?

What do you think?

[Cyclesafe]

The ACA tours are great for newbies and for experienced people who find that the upsides of an organized tour outweigh the downsides.  Peoples' experiences mostly relate to the leader(s) / other participants one was lucky enough / cursed enough to encounter, the weather, and equipment choices.

Candid assessments of ACA tours can be found on Bike Forums.  You'll find that there's lots of whining, probably something that ACA would prefer not to sponsor here.  CGOAB has journals organized by ACA route.

As the date of your tour approaches, your leader will distribute to the group the emails of those participants who have agreed to share them.  The you'll be able to get a jump start then on getting to know them.  It depends on the individuals involved of course, but prior to the four ACA unsupported trips I went on there was very little pre-trip chatter.

[CraftGeek]

<snip>
Candid assessments of ACA tours can be found on Bike Forums.  You'll find that there's lots of whining, probably something that ACA would prefer not to sponsor here.  CGOAB has journals organized by ACA route.
</snip>

I probably don't have your skills in the dark arts of internet search engines but I couldn't find a forum dedicated to the ACA guided tours, or even one that references them.

What I was thinking of was a forum that someone could see conversations about all the Guided Tours in one place. This way, someone who is wondering if they should spend a grand on a guided tour can get more info from the reviews, questions and general chatter that should evolve there. Also, if all the threads re guided tours were in one forum, it would help the choosing of one over the other.

If some opinion is negative, that will help ACA correct the problem, if any. If it is unwarranted whining, it would be obvious. I don't think ACA should have a problem sponsoring open discussion of their guided tours.

[John Nettles]

I don't know of one but think it is a good idea and would second the nomination should ACA be willing to consider this.

[paddleboy17]

How about it, Moderator, can you put a plug in for this?  Having an area to discuss organized ACA tours seems very reasonable...

[indyfabz]

In writing "Bike Forums", I think Cyclesafe was referring to www.bikeforums.net

And CGOAB is www.crazyguyonabike.com

Poke around both those resources and you might find something relevant.

[FredHiltz]

... I started searching for any info related to any of the other Guided Tours. I found some references, but no real info.

... shouldn't we make the place for them on the forums?

What do you think?

I'd like to offer a contrary opinion based on CraftGeek's first observation. If there were much demand for this, we would have seen many, many posts about guided tours in the 5-1/2 years of this forum. A new sub-forum would likely see little use.

New sub-forums have their pros and cons. We who have broad interests find it difficult to follow so many. (The "new" flag does help.) How many of the 39 sub-forums do you read now? What interesting things have you missed as a result? You will never know.

Fifteen of the 39 sub-forums have fewer than five threads. I will suggest that John reduce the number, not increase it. Perhaps an informal sunset rule would serve to remove the clutter of sub-forums that once seemed like good ideas but never took hold: Six months after the first post, if there are fewer than ten threads, move those threads into General Discussion and delete the sub-forum. Frivolous threads that accomplish nothing more than boosting the count just would not count.

What do you think of that?

Fred

[CraftGeek]

Hmm. Good points.

I think I may have made a bad assumption here. I saw the low topic count of many of the sub-fora and the single digit post count of many (most?) of the posters as evidence that this site was new and still in the design phase. But you say it has been around for 5 years?

In that case, I think you are right. Given that many of the other more focused sub-fora are underused, making one for Guided Tours would be a rather Zen exercise.

I retract my request.

[John Nelson]

Why not just start a thread in one of the existing forums for your particular tour? You could then email the participants (once you get the list) giving them a link to the thread you started. I realize that it wouldn't give you all you wanted, but it would be an easy way to exhange information before the tour, and potentially solicit advice from people who've done it previously. I don't think you need a whole forum--a thread should do, and anybody can create one.

[CraftGeek]

That will work fine for the upcomming tour and that is just what I'll do as the date approaches

Thanks all! 

Hey! the Smileys are working! 

[bogiesan]

A separate folder for all guided tours or just for ACA guided tours?

IMNSHO, the traffic here on the ACA site just doesn't warrant the additional clicks to drill into a folder devoted exclusively to guided touring.

But, heck, 10 years ago no one could have predicted the GPS section would generate that kind of traffic.

david boise ID