MTB-OZ is an emailing list* for Australian mountain bikers. Started in November 1996 by the then editor of Australian Mountain Bike, John Stevenson, the list has grown into a virtual community with about 300 members. His main motivation for starting the list was to provide a way for mountain bikers to find other people to ride with, as Australian clubs are generally more orientated towards racing. MTB-OZ has certainly fulfilled this role.

When I first joined the list it was still in its infancy, barely a week old, and I was a complete beginner, riding a cheap rigid bike, and just dipping my toes in the water every once in a while. The list provided a forum where I could ask questions without feeling foolish, about equipment, technique, maintenance, whatever. A lot of rides were organized, and although I had trouble keeping up at first, I found that by riding with people who were a lot more skilled than I my technique improved quickly, and no-one seemed to mind waiting for me to catch up anyway.

These days, although still far from being an expert, I can offer my advice to newcomers on the list. I'm riding a hardtail now (still dreaming about that duallie...), I can do most of the maintenance on my bike myself, I've even started racing, although not very seriously. I'm riding 2-3 times a week with a bunch of mates who I would never have met had it not been for the list.

The list demonstrates the way in which email can be a powerful tool for organization, as well as being a way to build a sense of community among a diverse group of people. Far from being dry and technical, the list is like a large group of people sitting around a campfire, with many different conversations going on at once, discussing bikes as well as the world in general, having a joke whenever the opportunity presents itself, even gossiping, and making plans for future trips and social nights. Don't even think of asking me about last year's Christmas drinks and my glasses!

I would highly recommend the MTB-OZ to any mountain biker with email access. There is a lot of traffic on the list, but you can subscribe to a digest version to have the 50-80 daily messages consolidated into 2-3 larger emails so that you don't clog your inbox. To subscribe, send a message to majordomo@cycling.org, with the subject line blank and "subscribe mtb-oz" in the message body for the normal list, or "subscribe mtb-oz-digest" for the digest version. There is also a homepage for the list at http://members.xoom.com/mtboz/

*in an emailing list, you send a message to a server, which then re-sends your message to the addresses of all of the people subscribed to that list.