Originally Posted by
sarals
Hi, Carleton. Well, to be clear, I am NOT steeping away from track cycling. I'm piping down here because it has a become a little bit like the 33. That's not my cup of tea. It's a boisterous, men's discussion most of the time. I don't belong in the thick of that. As for other women here, I don't know who they are. There are across the board interests for all track cyclists, and I'm sure they've posted about those. I have, for sure. Women specific interests, issues. Well, no racing forum I've seen really covers those. Masters Racing has to a degree, but that's all I can recall. And, I don't care to post publicly about controversial subjects. I don't, and I won't. I'm not upset, I'll be reading, but quietly.
I used to moderate the "33" years ago. It can be harsh in a "let's talk plainly" sort of way, but I've never known them to be unfair or outright mean (with the occasional outlier). Bullsh*t and bullsh*tters don't get very far there.
It's my understanding (and someone correct me if I'm wrong) is that that sub was created back when the regular road forum was 90% "Freds" who didn't know much about actually racing and would nonetheless have a lot to say in the racing threads and the racers wanted their own forum to keep the signal-to-noise ratio high..
It's called "The 33" because, back then, the URLs had numbers in them like "/forum-33/" or something like that. So, to differentiate between the "Road Cycling" and the "Road Racing" forums, the nickname "33" stuck.
I'll be honest, in all my years on BF in the Fixed Gear, Track, Road, and Road Racing forums where I kept up, you and SF stand out as those who mention a lot of gender stuff. Bike Forums is generally a "genderless" site with very few overt mentions of gender aside from the necessary pronouns used to refer to others. Your language is subtle, but I noticed it.
I literally think I've read every word posted on this forum by everyone in the past 8 years. (OK, 1/3 of them are mine...but whatever...hahahaha).
Originally Posted by
Voodoo76
Wonder if there would be interest in a women's racing sub?
Originally Posted by
sarals
I'd be interested in it.
The place to make the suggestion would be here:
https://www.bikeforums.net/forum-sug...er-assistance/
A lot of things are suggested in passing in threads like this one, but a formal request in the forum linked above would go a lot further. Maybe make a small case for it. Adding a new sub-forum is kind of a big deal. But, hell, if we have a "Fixed Gear Freestyle" forum, I'm sure we can get a ladies forum. On the other hand, BF has been around for a long time and I would imagine that this has come up before. Maybe there is a reason it doesn't exist (lack of interest, do they only allow women to post?, do they only allow women to read?). It could open of a lot of odd dynamics and admins might simply say, "Go play with the other kids."
I mean, one of the reasons I really like BF is that it's "Old School Internet" in that you can be anonymous if you want to. Your "Government Name", location, job, etc... aren't required for entry. Yes, the unfortunate assumption that most people have of others on the internet is that the other people are all young adult Caucasian males. But, we know that's not true. We can turn off that bias within ourselves without having to require people do declare what or who they are.