This forum is dying

Since 2001, over 90,000 cyclist's have joined Cycling Forums to discuss topics from general cycling to equipment, training, racing and travel or vacation destinations (especially in europe during the tour de france). We also feature an great deals in our online store, 100's of articles, classifieds and product reviews.

I've become less and less inclined to come to the forum because everyone rants about doping all the time. Or they hijack threads and make it about doping.

The fact remains people do achieve levels thought to be impossible.
e.g. 6 May 1954 R.Bannister 1st sub 4min mile run.

...Bannister...DOPER! :D

NNS and yourself - are free to open a ToM thread if you wish.

I'm interested in reading about races from any (and all) regions.
If you are interested, the turnout and the support for the race was phenomenal, apparently much more than the teams expected. So cycling isn't dead in the US; we are excited to actually see it.

That being said, the television news virtually ignored it, which blew me away considering they shut down half of downtown for the race. They spent a full 30 minutes discussing the both the Rams (football) and the Cardinals (baseball) LOSING, but they don't have 5 minutes for the Tour.

Big crowds everywhere for it, though. We were blessed with phenomenal weather for the week, so that helped. I look forward to it being an annual event. I figured I wouldn't see Hincapie racing in it again, but since he won, he was asked if with T-Mobile, what were the chances he would come back to defend his title, and he grinned and said "very good!"

So that would be great. I never expected to see any European cycling teams, like, ever, and this is a very exciting and unexpected development for the Midwest.

I've become less and less inclined to come to the forum because everyone rants about doping all the time. Or they hijack threads and make it about doping.The real problem is that everyone who wanted to talk about the actual cycling kept responding to posters such as doctor_house instead of ignoring him. That eabled him to take over every post. If we ignore the doping comments (outside the doping board which does exist) then I think we'll all start having good conversations again. That means responding to everything else and acting like those posts/comments aren't even on your screen.

I've become less and less inclined to come to the forum because everyone rants about doping all the time. Or they hijack threads and make it about doping.

It seems to be a lot better now - once the Tour finished all those ****** went away.

I think I'll take next July off the forum and just ride.

Its the Vuelta. Does anybody care about this race at all? Frankly, I prefer the Classics to stage races. Paris Nice, Romandy, California, etc. They all tend to have the same formula. Start with a prologue which has little impact on the GC. A few sprinters stages. Couple mountain stages that shake things up a bit and widdle the race down to a handful of contenders. A time trial that decides the race followed by a processional last day for the sprinters. The Giro is a beautiful race and the Tour is the Tour. However, the Vuelta is just a long stage race at the end of the season for guys that didn't really live up to expectations in the Tour. It is just boring.

I'm counting the days to Het Volk.

Agreed - but on a much larger scale - the grand tours are getting more and more boring - and more and more drugs are used/blamed/promoted/whatever. It's been ages since more than a minute separated the top 10 GC finishers in a stage - 10 secdons here, 20 seconds there - YAWN.

The classics are much more exciting - bring on the European spring!!!! Attack - counter attack - five different groups chasing each other at warp speed through little towns and short steep hills.

This site uses software that is used by many other sites. I don't see how it can be lacking a feature to ban IPs or IP blocks. It was pathetic how he was banned twice in a couple of days and then they let his new incarnation continue. A sad example of moderation. I think we are seeing a lack of will rather than a lack of ability.You can ban any IP, you can place someone on MU, you can use Coventry to stop unwanted people form coming in, there are 30 different ways to keep someone out…and three are “for ever” you can even kill floating IP’s…so if you want someone gone it can happen.

The TdF was a nauseating experience this year.

The sport is a joke

The TdF was a nauseating experience this year.

The sport is a joke+1... I spend most of my time on the fishing forums now... There's a doping joke in there somewhere.

Agreed - but on a much larger scale - the grand tours are getting more and more boring - and more and more drugs are used/blamed/promoted/whatever. It's been ages since more than a minute separated the top 10 GC finishers in a stage - 10 secdons here, 20 seconds there - YAWN.

The classics are much more exciting - bring on the European spring!!!! Attack - counter attack - five different groups chasing each other at warp speed through little towns and short steep hills.
Been a while? You mean 1 year, right? Floyd Landis had an epic stage that everyone said brought them back to the times of Merckx. And that was only 1 year ago. And even this year, while they ended up ruining it, the mountain stages between Rasmussen and Contador were incredibly exciting! And how about the first stage where Rasmussen broke away and took many, many minutes on his rivals and then suddenly people started talking about how he'd been working on his TT over the winter? Suddenly, it looked like a brilliant tactical move. And this year's Giro had two AMAZING stages: stage 10 where everyone literally collapsed crossing the finish line (see the pic of Andy Schleck leaning, near death, against the railing) and stage 17 on the Zoncolan. Have you been watching the GT's?


NOTE: as for banning IP's, it's not always simple. If people are using dynamic IP's given by their ISP, banning that IP may block them for a week or so, until they shut off their modem and upon re-logging in, they have a new IP and their old IP now belongs to someone else, who unfortunately is now banned.

doping = cycling
TDF = life sciences research

Jan Ulrich denials = betrayed by Swiss banking wires

T-Mobile anti-doping policy = more sporting fraud

Fantasy cycling = silly denial

gambling & drinking = solution for those still in need of cycling heroes

Gotta love that cut and paste... sure saves typing.

Gotta love that cut and paste... sure saves typing.I suspect this is more than just a social retard who is hell bent on drumming his message in.

I think he is in a war with the owner(s) of this forum, and/or the moderators. His cliched rant goes beyond proselytizing. It is a destructive attempt IMO to sabotage threads and CyclingForums.com.

Why can't he be banned on suspicion (its pretty obvious) that he is a previously banned member. With the caveat apology that it may be a wrongful association, the wrongfully accused member can be encouraged to rejoin under another username. That would give moderators the carte blanche to ban on circumstantial evidence. This guy would be able to come back but the first time he posts another idiosynchratic message - Kaboom, he's banned again with the same message (wrongful accusation apology) from the moderator.

I suspect this is more than just a social retard who is hell bent on drumming his message in.

I think he is in a war with the owner(s) of this forum, and/or the moderators. His cliched rant goes beyond proselytizing. It is a destructive attempt IMO to sabotage threads and CyclingForums.com.

Why can't he be banned on suspicion (its pretty obvious) that he is a previously banned member. With the caveat apology that it may be a wrongful association, the wrongfully accused member can be encouraged to rejoin under another username. That would give moderators the carte blanche to ban on circumstantial evidence. This guy would be able to come back but the first time he posts another idiosynchratic message - Kaboom, he's banned again with the same message (wrongful accusation apology) from the moderator.
The problem is that there is almost no moderation on cyclingforums, which is nice compared to other over moderated cycling forums but occasionally the boom does need to be lowered on disruptive behavior. I would argue for any sort of banning to be used very sparingly, but HV has clearly crossed the line and damaged the forum.

The one mod for the forums that HV spams does not mind his posts and does not think they are a problem (as evidenced by what he has posted on other threads about HV and his various incarnations). Skimming some info on vBulletin it is not clear to me whether a regular mod can ban a user.

So we are left to rely on the site's owner, who does not seem to want to be involved. Basically we are screwed. Maybe if enough members PMed the admin we might see some sort of action.

As far as determining whether it is the same person, this is easy. The forum software records IP addresses and there is a feature that allows you to list the IP addresses a user has posted from or the users that have posted from an IP addresses. Most people use dynamic IPs but they still fall into small ranges. It would be trivial to show that HV is Flyer is Flyer's Finale is Holocaust. This feature might only be available to the admin instead of regular mods.

I did not determine from vBulletin's crappy online docs if it allows banning IP ranges but it does support banning lists of IPs. The admin needs to do a little research about the IP addresses HV is using and start by banning IPs and then expand the ban to ever larger subnets until HV cannot post anymore. If his location of Guam is correct then it should be easy to get rid of him.

Ahh, his location is not Guam. He puts different info (eg South Wales) on each username incarnation. IMO he is west coast USA, judging from his posting times, and my guess would be San Francisco given that Lim once referred that he would only ask for his advice on his knowledge of the 49'ers. And my guess on suburb would be somewhere near Castro Street given that it is impossible that there is a woman in his life.The problem is that there is almost no moderation on cyclingforums, which is nice compared to other over moderated cycling forums but occasionally the boom does need to be lowered on disruptive behavior. I would argue for any sort of banning to be used very sparingly, but HV has clearly crossed the line and damaged the forum.

The one mod for the forums that HV spams does not mind his posts and does not think they are a problem (as evidenced by what he has posted on other threads about HV and his various incarnations). Skimming some info on vBulletin it is not clear to me whether a regular mod can ban a user.

So we are left to rely on the site's owner, who does not seem to want to be involved. Basically we are screwed. Maybe if enough members PMed the admin we might see some sort of action.

As far as determining whether it is the same person, this is easy. The forum software records IP addresses and there is a feature that allows you to list the IP addresses a user has posted from or the users that have posted from an IP addresses. Most people use dynamic IPs but they still fall into small ranges. It would be trivial to show that HV is Flyer is Flyer's Finale is Holocaust. This feature might only be available to the admin instead of regular mods.

I did not determine from vBulletin's crappy online docs if it allows banning IP ranges but it does support banning lists of IPs. The admin needs to do a little research about the IP addresses HV is using and start by banning IPs and then expand the ban to ever larger subnets until HV cannot post anymore. If his location of Guam is correct then it should be easy to get rid of him.

Ahh, his location is not Guam. He puts different info (eg South Wales) on each username incarnation. IMO he is west coast USA, judging from his posting times, and my guess would be San Francisco given that Lim once referred that he would only ask for his advice on his knowledge of the 49'ers. And my guess on suburb would be somewhere near Castro Street given that it is impossible that there is a woman in his life.
Find the domain for the IP he is using and if it is a business e-mail a complaint to his employer, assuming he does not spend all his time in his mom's basement. :D

Find the domain for the IP he is using and if it is a business e-mail a complaint to his employer, assuming he does not spend all his time in his mom's basement. :D I nominate this post as "Post of the Week."

Find the domain for the IP he is using and if it is a business e-mail a complaint to his employer, assuming he does not spend all his time in his mom's basement. :DMy guess is that he is retired/unemployed. Over 50, probably nearer to 60. His posting times, assuming west coast, can go right thru the morning from 7:30am during the week, which would indicate that either he starts work at 7:30am or he lives in his Mom's basement.

Actually, its only conjecture, but given his probable age, location (in a basement in SF) and egotistical, sociopathic personality revealed in his posts, I would speculate that he is the best suspect for the Zodiac Killer so far found.

Skimming some info on vBulletin it is not clear to me whether a regular mod can ban a user.I think he can. Remember House (not Doctor.House) and his incarnations. He was always complaining that Lim was banning him.

Maybe it is just me, but there hardly seems to be lively discussion about anything here. And if there is a thread or two, it isn't about cycling.

Are people just burned out? where are all the regulars that have kept this forum going?

Is this forum going the way of the vuelta?It's too bad really. The forum was very lively the past few years, we always had dope talk but that was generally aimed at one rider and because only one rider doped before last season we could handle it,,,, as soon as he retired, everyone started doping. :rolleyes: :D



Seriously, you could not express your thoughts on any thread without having the same droning, adnusium, sophomoric, childish, repetitive, repetitive, repetitive replies from a handful of trolls. You could not talk about pedals without Heckle and Jeckle chiming in about cow blood, bags of blood, wizzinators, potbildge, Guinness, EPO, cow blood, bovine blood and cow blood.

I enjoy reading many of the community member’s thoughts here and I like constructive thoughts and criticisms but this forum has become a very sour and bitter place in recent months.


When the trolls run out of diapers, they will leave and things should get back to normal,,,, whatever normal is.;)