Mountain Biking Forum

[19ninety]

After becoming a keen mountain biker I wanted to start a forum that was friendly and offered helpful advice. Things haven't really taken off as I'd have hoped, and I'm kinda starting to loose motivation to keep it up what with actually being out riding, work and parental responsibilities.
So I thought I'd ask for some feedback on the forum in case there's something I'm missing that's not working, etc.
Any feedback would be appreciated.

http://www.talkmountain.bike/

 

[rafass]

Cool domain and cool background
I'm seeing a double "share this page" module in the sidebar

Spoiler: Screenshot

 

[Ernest L. Defoe]

Starting a forum is work growing it into a large community is hard work. It takes time and lots of effort. I need to practice this myself. From looking at your site on mobile it looks nice. I know all to well how you feel about losing motivation. When you don't see the fruits of your labor pay off immediately you do tend to lose motivation. The only thing I can say is just keep plugging at it and hope it pays off in the end. It seems like legit sites take a long time to grow but illegal ones pop up overnight and have 1,000+ members in a couple of days. It makes it difficult seeing that but again if you work for it things will pay off. Now it's time for me to go practice what I preach.

 

[Deathstarr]

Where are you from? You have a section about southern riding. I am also starting a mtb forum but its not on xenforo.

Going back to your forum your theme kinda hurts my eyes the background has different colors and some are dark and some are bright. The text is white and the background for the forums are black so its very contrast.

 

[19ninety]

@rafass Thanks share this page fixed, just needed up run an update.

@Ernest L. Defoe Certainly is hard work. I've got a little list of content to add that I'm working through slowly. My pace has slowed, in my mind I needed to get some active posters in 6 to 12 months to avoid the forum getting stagnant. Really feel like there is only so much I can add alone before it becomes a blog in a forum, and not a forum for discussion, I shall keep at it though!

 

[19ninety]

@Deathstarr I'm in the UK, there's a reason for focusing more on southern England. One thing I noticed when getting back in to mountain biking was there are dominant country wide and even international forums. Some also focus heavily on main MTB areas of the country, Wales, Scotland and the big trail centres in Wales and the north of England. I wanted to try and focus mainly on the great riding in the south of England (kinda the niche for the forum), whilst also later on once the forum grew then coving the rest of the UK.
I have always liked the current theme, there are a couple of others to choose from which are a lot simpler and cleaner, I set the current default one as its quite different from 'regular' forum visual styles, but perhaps that's why regular less fancy styles are more popular? Wanted to try and make something that's catching when people visit...

 

[Ernest L. Defoe]

@rafass Thanks share this page fixed, just needed up run an update.

@Ernest L. Defoe Certainly is hard work. I've got a little list of content to add that I'm working through slowly. My pace has slowed, in my mind I needed to get some active posters in 6 to 12 months to avoid the forum getting stagnant. Really feel like there is only so much I can add alone before it becomes a blog in a forum, and not a forum for discussion, I shall keep at it though!

Something you can try is Postloop to get some short term active posters. I've used it in the past. It'll cost you some money to do it but if you need something immediate to get some activity it's worth looking into.

 

[KenBrace]

Looks great. I love the background image and transparent nav bar.