The last months have been quite busy. We have many new exciting features in our pipeline which I hope will be available for you before the end of the year. While we are still continuously working to improve Aquabike.World it´s becoming more and more difficult to maintain our little Aquabike World in the usual quality.
One reason is that I had (and still have) to deal with some health issues which not only lead to a race free season for me, but also meant that I have to step down in terms of working hours.
Besides, I can’t maintain Aquabike.World on my own. I always had one of our employees helping mostly with event updates. Although it was always clear that there was no money to be made from this project, I hoped that it would at least generate enough income to pay the employee on a permanent basis. Unfortunately, I finally have to admit to myself that it’s not going to work out like that. I cannot continue to pay an employee out of my pocket forever. That´s why I´m reaching out for some support from the awesome aquabike community to keep Aquabike.World not only up and running but also make it possible to further improve it.
In this post I will show you nine ways on how you can help with that.
How You Can Support Aquabike.World
1. Volunteer
If you are willing to sacrifice a little bit of your valuable time, you can now register as a volunteer at Aquabike.World. As a volunteer you can help updating the events for the upcoming season. We made this process as easy as possible, so you do not need any specific knowledge or skills. You should however be able to use your computer and browse the internet (to be more specific: event websites). That’s about it. If you are willing to help as a volunteer, just send me an email at mail@aquabike.world. You will get a pdf with really simple step by step instructions, and I also made a video to help you to get started.
2. Become A Premium User
A big THANK YOU goes out to the aquabikers who already signed up for a premium account.
Every premium membership is a big help to keep the project going. If you think about going premium, you can check out the premium account features here.
There will be some new features coming up over the next few months which will be great especially for the competitive athletes and the statistic nerds.
Premium membership is only € 34.90 / $ 34.90 / £ 29.90 per year.
3. Spread The Word
Hard to believe, but apparently there are still aquabike athletes who do not know about Aquabike.World. Can you imagine that? 😱
But seriously, of course it helps if you share Aquabike.World on social media or simply talk about it with other athletes.
If you are a race organizer, who wants to support us, please get in touch. I’m always open for cooperations that can be beneficial for both sides.
4. Submit Events
The research for new events is a pretty time-consuming task. As we list all aquabike races around the world I have to keep an eye on triathlon events in many different countries in quite a few different languages. Maybe you can imagine that this is not that easy. Therefore, if you hear about any new event, you can do a brief check if it is already listed (just use our event search) and if not, you can use this form to submit an event. It only takes a few seconds and is a big help.
This of course also applies to race organizers. If you are putting up a new event, just let me know!
5. Use Our Accommodation Tool
If you are travelling to an aquabike event and need accommodation, our little accommodation map you find on the event pages is pretty helpful. The pin you can see there marks the location of the event venue, so you can easy find an accommodation close to the event location. If you book it through the links on the map, we’ll get a little commission. It´s really not much, but of course it also helps.
6. Use Our Registration Links
In most cases it really doesn’t make a difference. But in some cases we also get a little commission if you sign up for an event through our registration link. This applies most of all for many events in the United States which process their registrations through runsignup. We won´t make millions of dollars with race registrations as well, but a few dollars here and there also give some support to our little aquabike project.
7. Write Race Reviews
Race Reviews is something I really would like to encourage you to use a bit more. For many races you might find reviews on other pages. But it often makes a big difference if aquabike athletes are just a sidekick to bring a few extra $ for the race organizer, or if they are really appreciated as competing athletes. Let other aquabike athletes know about your experiences. This makes Aquabike.World even more valuable for other athletes and encourages them to use our pages and services and helps to grow our little community.
To find a race you want to write a review about you can just simply user our event search – just insert the right time period in the past to find past events (if you enter no time period it shows only future events as results by default).
8. Be An Active Member Of Our Community
Every Kudo you give to another athlete, every friendship you make, every post you write, like or comment is one little contribution to have an active, useful and supporting community that others like to use, share and actively contribute as well. And having an active community is probably the most important part to have a project that can be sustainable and support itself in the long run.
9. Send Me Your Suggestions
Is there anything that you miss on Aquabike.World? Anything not working as you would expect, or any ideas how to improve the information or services we offer? I’m always open to new ideas. If there is anything in your mind about how to make Aquabike.World even better, just drop me a few lines at mail@aquabike.world and we’ll see if we can make it happen.
If you have read all this, you are probably an active member of our community already. Thanks a lot for that!
I really have to say that despite all those hundreds and by now probably thousands of working hours that nobody will ever pay me for, I just really enjoy working on Aquabike.World and to continuously develop it to make it a tool that every triathlete envies 😁.
Thank you all for making this possible. Hope to meet many of you at different events throughout the next years.