Don’t shoot the messenger

[pinkyfloyd]

It's called forum fatigue, and it stems from reading the same questions over and over and over and over again. Usually posted by folk who cant be arsed searching the forum themselves and would rather ask a question and let everyone else do the work for them. The longer you stay on the forum the worse it gets.

Agreed completly. But the problem when your bike goes tits up is searching the forum is the last thing on your mind. The thought process goes like this:

Bugger bikes broke:

Help guys how can i fix this?:

Oh someone else had this problem thanks for the link.

Last thing you think about is it could have happened to someone else because its MY BIKES BROKE and comon sense goes out the window. People are looking for an imediate solution for their personal problem even though the answer is usually somewhere on the forum. Panic and stress does weird things to rational thinking.

[Furrybiker]

If you look on the superhawk forum they are getting more and more fed up with this, so it isnt just you!

[AMCQ46]

Cuppasoup has a good point about fatigue, I think it is more obvious to those of you who have been on here longer, it is not yet repetitive for me as I only joined in in the last 2 yrs, but I can see that perhaps the sence of dejavu can get wearing.

As I see it, each new wave of owners has to serve thier apprenticeship, both with the bike and with the forum, some will pass as they show that they can learn well and fit in with the existing club, others fail either socially or mechanicaly and natural selection removes them from the VTR gene pool.

But the cycle repeats all the time, and must get a bit boring.

Perhaps the user group is changing as the price bottoms out, and there is a different type of owner, but again I think they wont stay long as the truth is this is not a fashionable bike. It works for people who want to stay as far away from the "all the gear but no idea" trend, and look for character even if it comes with other drawbacks like a health apetite for consumables, poor brakes and below average suspension.

Well thats my take on the comments from Warby, but I can see that lots of people have taken the words to mean something totally different.. It takes all sort!

[benny hedges]

A friend on another forum called the Storm a grown ups sports bike. Its a gentlemans bike. Its made, not for thrashing around the race track, but more for a nice leisuly drive around the countryside with your mates. Sure it will still do silly speeds. Will out accelerate anything on 4 wheels and it will put pull a lot of inline 4's with midrange grunt but its not a holligan bike.

well everywhere i go i meet folk who say yeh i used to have one of them, cracking bike.... miss it...
so it does have a certain charm.
and on virtually every trackday you will see at least one and they do hold their own with the il4s.
plus, they can be ridden in a hooligan fashion.... they wheelie better than any il4 ive ever had - i recommend them to everyone.
sure they have their flaws but nothing major.

regarding forum fatigue & irritating questions from noobs... firstly, most noobs aren't noobs.
as has been pointed out, firestorm owners do not tend to be 19yo power rangers who just past their test - they tend to go more for the gixxers, cbr600s & zx6r etc...
if more went the vtwin way i think they would get more out of their riding but thats just my opinion...
theres different reasons folk use a forum, & bearing mind this place is a model specific site, you will find nothing (bar the odd exception) but vtr owners here, ex owners who made good friends here and those looking for info before buying one.

not everyone is handy with spanners but with some of the threads here it gives the uninitiated the confidence to have a go with varying degrees of success.
as time goes by there will be less and less new users due to the fact that more storms get scrapped every week, their resale value goes down and more desirable bikes come into a more acceptable used price range.
i personally will be hanging onto mine for the forseeable future as it owes me nothing - most people you speak to have no intention of parting company or have had theirs for years

you will always get the same questions cropping up, basic stuff - it's how the regular users deal with it thats important.
imo you have to be patient & help where possible & point folk to the relevant thread or section and grit your teeth, otherwise an arsy unfriendly air takes over which in turn puts off new users.

everyone ive met here has been sound as crouton. met timbo warby & chris c today randomly, looking forward to the summer for more get-togethers and piss taking.
hopefully there will be many more noobies to come, lambs to the slaughter lol

[tony.mon]

Maybe what we need to come up with is a diagnostic tool, something like a bike picture where you click on that part and a menu pops up with links to common threads dealing that are relevant to that bit of the bike, e.g. CCT's or head bearings.

Or a flow chart, asking questions to diagnose problems.

What do you think?

[Kev L]

That sounds like a blinding idea. I am sure some folk don't actually know the correct term for the bits they think they have problems with, so a schematic drawing with drop down menu's is a real boon.
However the actual logistics of creating such a facility are beyond me, and I wouldn't know how much work was involved.

[Pete.L]

It's called forum fatigue, and it stems from reading the same questions over and over and over and over again. Usually posted by folk who cant be arsed searching the forum themselves and would rather ask a question and let everyone else do the work for them. The longer you stay on the forum the worse it gets.

Rich, you've been showing the symptoms for ages Mind you ,it's easy to spot when you've got it too

Congrats Warby on a new post First one this year I haven't read before and thank you all for you help in helping me understand this problem and for those others, who maybe inflicted too, I know understand I don't have to write a response because you probably know what I'm going to say anyway

Pete.l

[gumbie man]

If anybody does want to show me how to get the best out of the storm i would be most gratefull. I live in sunny oxfordshire but the bike is sorned till the end of this month.Am available most weekends and some days during the week.can be contacted by pm.