Charlieboy28":3ao05n0q said:
its lost something that was lovely and that brought me here and kept me here in the first place, when i posted a question on the forum it was not because it was necessarily retro it was becuase the answer and opinion i could expect was the one i wanted from peers i respected, from guys who ride then and ride now, who had both retro and modern and cycled throughout the time etc...
....
Word. That's exactly one of the reasons I was an avid user of this site, and held it up as an example to the local mountain bike site as a template for communal spirit (without succes I might add. Danes will be Danes.) However, since the banishment of 98 ->, which included two of my main rides from 2000 (though still old frames, titanium, of respectable lineage etc.), to the bottom of the forum listing, coupled with the puritan bordering on faschist ideals towards the early/glory days, I no longer feel a part of the community. Thus the sense of "peers" is lost, and I haven't been active for some time now and probably won't be again. Some of the attitudes strike me as so ridiculous, close-minded and hostile now, that I also have lost respect for the purveyors of those attitudes. Instead of cultivating and nurturing a healthy interest in old bikes, this will only succeed in turning those with an interest - but lack of history - away by alienating them. So retrobike can become elitist and cliquey much like another site that has been mentioned time again for being elitist and cliquey and shitting all over RB for being common. Take a look in the mirror. The sense of community may not have been lost (though for some), but is at the very least split. I hope I'm wrong, but I fail to see how you can avoid becoming a group of decaying dinosaurs if you don't welcome some new blood and, with an open mind, keep a sense of history alive so modern riders might appreciate where and how it all started. Let's face it, mountain biking has evolved in the last 25 years and those evolutionary changes are here to stay. You can shun people who won't care anyway, or open your minds so those same people will care and you can earn their respect for your knowledge and roots. It sucks to be acculturated, but you adapt and survive or risk looking like a grumpy old fool (the ones you shunned back in 1992 because they hated your "alternative lifestyle.")
[edit] And here comes the shitstorm....