I get my information about LD riding from all of the above. Mainly because that's where people are posting it.
There's this forum, which is pretty dead, but I check for new posts from time to time. And there's the IBA Premier newsletter. Which is nice to know about certain IBA events. But I'm more interested in rallys. And since the IBA only puts on the IBR, there's not much (if any) info on smaller rallys that I regularly participate in. Then there's the LD rider list, but good informational posts on the list are becoming few and far between these days. People are choosing less and less to post there and as such, list traffic is diminishing. I heard about the list in person and then signed up to follow along with the 09 IBR. I always remember there being multiple threads at any given time, on a variety of topics. This past year there were months where I wasn't sure I was even still subscribed.
I also follow multiple threads on ADVrider.
There's one about general LD riding, mainly various people's cert rides - Iron Butt Adventures
https://advrider.com/f/threads/iron-butt-adventures.1187139/
One about rallying, but it gets less traffic - Road Rally nOOb -
https://advrider.com/f/threads/road...lies-welcoming-more-road-rally-n00bs.1083792/
And every other year someone starts a thread about the IBR - 2019 Iron Butt Rally Thread -
https://advrider.com/f/threads/2019-iron-butt-rally-thread.1384517/
And then there's the 2 main Facebook's groups. There's the Iron Butt Motorcycle riders group which focuses mainly on cert riding. And the Long-Distance Motorcycle Endurance Rallying group, which focuses more on rallying. But the topics from both bleed over into the other.
Facebook is where majority of action is. I suspect the reason for this is 2 fold. 1 is because there's so many people on Facebook already. If you're a part of any other motorcycle group, Facebook is going to put that little "ad" on the right side enticing you to join new groups that "may be of interest to you". That's not going to happen for anything else. I've never been on any website and seen an ad for the LDRider list. Just isn't going to happen. So instantly you get more eyes on the groups. The second reason I think Facebook is popular is because they make it so easy to share media. A picture is worth a thousand words. It's one thing to hear JD Smith talk about his R1200GS having an engine failure, it's another to watch the video of his engine grenading in the middle of the IBR that strikes at your heart. Yes some forums allow you to post photos, but it's not as easy. And it's sure as hell not as easy to share video as it is on Facebook.
That said I utterly despise Facebook. It's only good for real time communication. Good luck finding anything in the past. And that's the biggest problem. Any of the knowledge and wisdom that's being past on is instantly lost into the vast wasteland that is Facebook's algorithm on what it "thinks" you are interested in. Go ahead. Go try to find a specific response to a post that happened a couple months ago, let alone 2 years ago when the last IBR happened. It's impossible. This actually happened to me recently. Someone had answered a very specific question I asked (inside of another thread on another topic) and there is no fucking way I can find that again. I know what group it happened in. And I know it happened somewhere in the 2-8 months ago time span. But I'll never find it again because Facebook's search function is so fucking useless. That search would take me 2 minutes on any other modern forum like advrider, but it's near impossible on Facebook. Secondly, I find that the posts in Facebook groups also have a high fluff-to-useful content ratio. I stopped trying to read every comment on every post when I started to see that a single post was getting 100+ responses. I don't have time to read through 100+ "me too" comments that don't add anything to the conversation to find a couple gems of knowledge. And third, Facebook isn't going to be around very long. Don't believe me? Ask anyone under 25 if they have a Facebook account. Most don't. And the ones that do, don't actually log on anymore. I have 2 nieces and 2 nephews, ages 22 down to 8. None of them have Facebook accounts. They have other social media accounts, Instagram, etc. But not Facebook. Why? Their parents are on Facebook. It's not cool. Social media platforms are driven by user generated content. No users, no content. It won't happen immediately but eventually it'll die. Don't think so? Ask the Tom from MySpace and he probably thought the same thing. And all of the good content on fuel cells, hydration systems, tankbag nutrition, bonus hunting, rallying, LD riding, etc will be lost. Where as that same information on a modern forum would be easily searchable and archive-able for future use. Just my random thoughts.
