Anyone know of an alternative to the now deleted Pro thread? Where can we go for scoops, discussions etc about Pro gear? This forum has been completely ruined by the mods and they now even deleted the thread that was most valuable here.

The pro thread gets deleted but passive aggressive attacks on other members opinions are allowed to stay.

The moderation on the Pro gear thread really got out of hand. As said before, the mods were spamming the thread with more notes about off topic discussion than there was off topic discussion.

The thread seemed to easily moderate itself in the past. You could go back and forth about a particular piece of equipment and actually find out useful info from a huge pool of people. When things got really off topic mods deleted offending posts. Many times chat about how something looked fashion wise lead to discussion of how a technology works. That is very interesting to me and many other members here.

Not all of us have time to comb through every cycling news picture looking for new items, and not many members get the chance to actually attend big time pro races where photos can be taken of cool new equipment. The pro thread allowed those cool details to be discussed in one big thread. Now if you spot something cool at a race or in a photo it needs its own mini thread (or will it get deleted? I got that vibe from the note left by the mods)

As stated above, equipment developed with the protour in mind leads to most of the sub 6.8 kilo bikes on here. Pro team stuff certainly has a place in WW discussion.

While I don't agree with deleting the thread, I can understand why it needed to be done. The Pro thread was starting to lag in quality with lots of useless chat about unrelated things. The mods gave us plenty of warnings and even locked the thread for a day, but we didn't take heed. I don't think we have anyone but ourselves to blame.

On another note, I think the time of year has an impact on the thread's quality. There are periods between the bigger races when there isn't really anything on and coverage is lacking and as such there really isn't much to talk about that is directly related to new gear or interesting PRO mods. It's in these periods when the quality starts to take a dive, and OT discussion starts.

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CAAD10 Di2

What if we see a new prototype bike in the Tour? We can't post any pictures, we can't talk about it.. The pro thread gives us much information about the 2011 production bikes and new items such as wheels, stems,groupsets,... I understand the action from the moderaters but they have to make it clear now. If we can't post a new protour topic legally how can we do it before it got locked again? It's just ok as long as there is no protourrider riding the bike...? Everytime a new topic for a single bike/wheel?

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Good luck Sheldon Brown and may Igor fly with you.

"We", "Ourselves"??

Due to the public nature of the forum, there will allways be users that either not know about the rules, or do not care. Any 'self cleansing' mechanism will be shut down, because corrective posts will also be seen as offtopic/unwanted. Adding to the misery, once you start moderating a lot, it will be a joy for some to add fuel to the fire and f*ck up the thread even more. Do all of the participants (and onlookers!) have to be punished for that? I am all for the 'silent' removal of posts that have no link to the central topic.

I think it is bad practice to punish the majority, when some do not follow the rules. To that, have the moderators noticed how much extra work they evoked? Was it worth all that?

Adding a single line response to an OT post with a little hint where to look at instead would help new users a lot more than deleted OT posts and these warning blue moderator posts on every new page. This thread was (some OT discussions aside) more or less moderating itself.

Well done, Mods! You just removed the best thread of the whole forum, maybe the best thread of all bike-forums I know... Really great!

So what do we do if we want to discuss pro equipment? Or are we limited to homemade super light carbon components? The moderators remind me of the UCI and their application of the TT bike rules.

So many members are European and post great pics hat you can't find on Cyclingnews and Velonews. Are they not allowed to post pics of pros and their bikes at races now?

So silly fellas.

Now we should start to delete all threads in "introduce" section with road bikes that weight more than 6.8 kgs. Those bikes are not built in WW spirit!

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A light bike does replace good fitness.

OK... seriously... where can we go to view a similar thread? This forum seems to have grown into way more than just about $15,000 light bikes or pieces mod'ed in a kitchen somewhere. That's why I loved it! Now, with the overly aggressive moderation it seems like I will have to get my fix elsewhere. In the end, I get that it's difficult, but this is taken to an extreme. Because it's not uber-light (read $$$$$) it's not worthy here? What is wrong with this forum growing into something much larger and more informative to a greater audience of cyclists than a place for the uber-rich and/or obsessive do-it-yourselfers? I think most of us love cycling a whole lot more than we love modifying crap for the simple sake of modifying... and I can read what I want and it takes all of 5 seconds to peruse even a whole page of posts I may not be interested in, but even in that, there are usually good kernels that I love reading about.

rant over... now off to fairwheel's forum!

Tinea Pedis expressed my thoughts exactly.

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Exp001

...it is not showing on my page even after refreshing my browser.

deleted by mods, for diverging off thread topic too much.

A possible solution could have been to have a separate thread for Pro Stuff Discussion, and that original thread for pictures only.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=73719

What a bummer! The most interesting thread of this forum has gone.
Why can't we discuss about pro-team gear?

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CANYON Ultimate AL