Sixteen years is a long time on the internet

Before there was Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, or really any other social media platform save MySpace, there was the BikePGH Messageboard.

In its heyday in the mid to late 2000s, the BikePGH Messageboard was the place for Pittsburghers to talk about and organize around bicycling. Everything from building support for early bike lanes, to documenting cars hitting buildings, to recovering stolen bikes, to events such as BikeFest and the Every Neighborhood Ride happened in part due to communicating through this humble board. The board seemed to be able to straddle both serious discussions as well as a catalyst for fun, as evidenced by the seemingly never ending Tag-O-Rama game.

It’s amazing that it even lasted as long as it did considering the rise of admittedly much better and larger online communication tools.

Unfortunately, the internet has moved along, while the messageboard slowly, but surely fell apart. The company who runs the forum software no longer provides support to keep it going, resulting in an infestation of spam, broken features, and usability problems that it simply couldn’t keep up with.

The 15+ years of the Messageboard will not be lost to the ether, however. The board is an archival history of the safe streets and active transportation movement in Pittsburgh. There’s also simply a lot of great info on there. So, we’ve archived the board making it read-only accessible for eternity.

While the Messageboard may be going to internet heaven, there are plenty of places to connect with other local bicyclists.

We strongly encourage people to check out the active subreddit, Bicycling412, currently hosting 3.7k members.

As we bid farewell to the BikePGH Messageboard, we’d like to send a big thanks to the thousands of people who participated over the years to help build a robust and engaged community of bicyclists. The boards going down may only register as a blip in today’s internet landscape, but know that all of your contributions over the past decade and a half have helped shape this city in ways many never thought possible.