I will present the new user experience from two other cycling forum sites I frequent. One, which was my main go to site a dozen years ago, has no new user restriction. It gets a lot of spam posts, for some reason, new users often have questions answered with snarky responses, sometimes even angry responses and the site is dying a slow, agonizing death. The other, which is still going pretty strong, you essentially have to apply, and then you get to post 3-4 days later. That community is generally a friendly one though.
Im not web savvy enough to know how to make it new user friendlier here, but my impression has always been folks do a nice job of easing new users in. The informal pic assist has always been helpful as well.
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N = '96 Colnago C40, '04 Wilier Alpe D'Huez, '10 Colnago EPS, '85 Merckx Pro, '89 Merckx Century, '86 Tommasini Professional, '04 Teschner Aero FX Pro, '05 Alan Carbon Cross, '86 De Rosa Professional, '82 Colnago Super, '95 Gios Compact Pro, '95 Carrera Zeus, '84 Basso Gap, ‘89 Cinelli Supercorsa, ‘83 Bianchi Specialissima, ‘VO Randonneur, Ritchey Breakaway Steel, '84 Paletti Super Prestige, Heron Randonneur