I know it's been said before but, this place is getting worse I'm sure of it. The preportion of self opinionated, self righteous, narrow minded, and deliborately antogonistic posts is growing by the day!
The most frustrating thing is, under all the willy waving and arguing, there's still some really good, friendly info/advise/help available. It's just getting swamped by utter crap and is often shouted down by more of the above!!

FWIW I drive an Audi, I ride a Marin, I've got a carbon Fibre full sus and a road bike, I don't have a SS/fixie/29er/tandem/wooden/fibreglass/chocolate coated bike. I like animals and I've got a dog that occasionally comes with me to trail centres, I used to play WoW, I haven't got a tatoo (lol) and don't support Nazi ideals. I think perhaps I'm just to "Main-stream"/MOR 🙁

Maybe I'm just being sensitive after a long week at work. Maybe I've just "grown out" of the playground that is STW.

Or maybe I'll just STFU/MTFU and be back here after a good ride at the weekend and the world will seem a better place. I'm off to let some insults build up 😉

Hug?

2/10 not a very good rant. I reckon you could do with a lot more swearing, spelling mistakes, random capItaliZation and so on.

And MTFU, you looser (sic)

I'll bet you're a dole scrounger too and a fixie ****t

How's that? 🙂

Your spelling is f*cking atrocious, nob.

😆

It comes and goes. There's a wave of aggro, then it subsides and it cheers up, then another wave…

I wouldn't employ you. Fact.

TBH I doubt there's anyone you'd actually employ, Shib, seeing as how you're so clearly far superior to everyone else on the planet. 😆

I don't think it's a symptom of STW in and of itself, so much as a symptom of the Internet in general.

People say and do things that, face to face, they'd never dream of. It's akin to road rage types, people in their steel cages think they're indestructable. I had one guy the other day launch a torrent of abuse at me, visible in my rear view mirror, after I had the sheer audacity to not slam on the brakes and yield to him when he tried to carve me up on an otherwise empty road. You wouldn't get that on the street, someone sticking up two fingers at you for daring to walk along a path in a straight line.

Same here, people can be cockends safe in the knowledge that you can't bop them with a stout stick for their troubles.

What gear ratios have you got on that road bike? I bet they're sh*t.

Moaning tw@!

Personally, I'm still quite upset by the death of princess Diana. She must be up there in heaven right now, looking down and crying at what's become of STW.

Same here, people can be cockends safe in the knowledge that you can't bop them with a stout stick for their troubles.

I disagree. I don't think people want to behave like gits but don't in real life because they think they'll get a punch. Otherwise, everyone would be acting like a right arse to old women and kids all the time.

Forum aggro (and road rage) come from people not being able to properly relate to others when they're not physically standing in front of them face to face, I reckon.

Can I be a cockend? Will you employ me shib, no tat's or nuffink.

IanMunro will you be joing me in a day of mourning on the 31st then?

What tyres for a chocolate Nazi bike?

Forum aggro (and road rage) come from people not being able to properly relate to others when they're not physically standing in front of them face to face, I reckon.

I can only speak for myself, obviously, but it's rather good sport throwing a loaded opinion into a roomful of singletrackers, with the safety catch off and watching it go off.

I also rather enjoy winding up road ragers until they're a seething, purple mess spewing bile all over their windscreens whilst hanging out of the window gesticulating. It makes me chuckle as I drive off into the distance. Contrary to what a certain cockernee my think, I don't actually get angry. But I do confess to gaining a perverse pleasure from watching people get really wound up by my admittedly unsubtle opinions.

I'll be lighting a candle and letting Elton's touching movement flow over me.

🙄

it's just healthy discourse on a forum about bikes.
anyone who gets upset because of what somebody you have never met has written on an internet forum needs to interact with the real world a bit more.

it is like a cage of hungry monkeys that you occasionally toss a bannana into though 🙂

I blame Thatcha'

Yes it is but don’t let it get to you. Focus on the positive good folk on here. I blame all the wana be RACE COCKS on here and don’t even get me started on the bloody single speeders …. 😉

You think this place is bad? Go sneak a peak at PinkBike.com

Returning to STW is like a drunken embrace with a voluptuous aunt.

there's still some really good, friendly info/advise/help available. It's just getting swamped by utter crap and is often shouted down by more of the above!!

oh, the irony of this thread is making me smile 😀

Based on the original post, Christ, you need to get out more if you feel you need to justify what you believe are your inadequacies to the baying hoards of socially challenged mountain bikers on here.

Forum aggro (and road rage) come from people not being able to properly relate to others when they're not physically standing in front of them face to face, I reckon.

TBH, I'd be inclined to agree. (some large percentage) of communication is non-verbal, on a text-based medium you lose that. However,

I can only speak for myself, obviously, but it's rather good sport throwing a loaded opinion into a roomful of singletrackers, with the safety catch off and watching it go off.

… this isn't really what I'm talking about. Debate can be fun and I'm guilty of playing devil's advocate to spark discussion myself. There's a difference between that and being abusive, though.

FWIW I drive an Audi, I ride a Marin, I've got a carbon Fibre full sus and a road bike

I ………don't support Nazi ideals.

I think the Audi, Marin, carbon and road bike prove you are the sort of person most people here would shun!

Returning to STW is like a drunken embrace with a voluptuous aunt.

mmmm warm and squishy

People say and do things that, face to face, they'd never dream of.

We all have differing personas for different situations & people. I'm different person at work to when I'm at home.

I think a lot of this is to do with an in built self defence mechanism we all have. (nobody knows the real me so they can’t hurt me)

Likewise your online persona will be a different person to real like person (SFB maybe an exception)

On here I'm a successful mid 20’s man that knows everything about bikes, boats, modern history and in fact anything else I can check on wikipedia before I post it. I have paid off my mortgage, own most of the models in Audi's range, earn 100s of 1000s of pounds and know everything there is to know about sports nutrition. I can wheelie, drop in 10ft drops and go downhill faster on a rigid singlespeed than Steve Peat can on a full suss rig!

In reality I’m just an IT geek with the power of Google and a spellchecker to make me look better than I am, I can’t even ride a bike that well and I don't like fighting.

One of the chief joys of the internet is the way it has liberated millions of anonymous hecklers, strikingly few of whom had hitherto risked sharing their coruscating views in public because people tended to yawn, or ask them to shut up, or physically attack them. Suddenly they had an outlet, and before long, a vastly inflated sense of self-worth. They could pop up, courageously tell a blogger that she was fat, and disappear into the night like Raffles the gentleman thief.

Charlie Brooker

Ooh the irony – I've returned to what's turning in to one of my favourite threads on STW 😆 ! Maybe I'll stick around a bit!

And yes, actually I'm a dole scrounging fixie ****t with crap gear ratios an bad speling n sh1t. I'm off to MTFU and try interacting with the RW for a bit coz that's what Lady Di would've done….gulp 😯

oh, Pk-ripper – not inadequacies, I'm very happy with my cards, even if they do make me a target on here 😉

They're making you a target because you're allowing them to make you a target with whiny and look at me threads like this.

Hmmmm 🙄

But I do confess to gaining a perverse pleasure from watching people get really wound up by my admittedly unsubtle opinions

That's not nice tho, really.

A bit of a wind up is one thing, but when people start getting really upset, that's when the less sociopathic back off.

I'd disagree with you normally, but the stunt that some **** pulled on me last week actually defies belief. Genuinelly nasty

What stunt was that?

Binners posted on here asking for some help with work for a client, some 'wag' sent the link to the client. It didn't go down very well.

Some people.

i lik it peeple r frenldy its lik having a famaly that u can talk 2

Oh yeah I remember that.

Very sucky. Hope it's resolved…

I only read the posts i want to and filter out all the crap so my experience of the site is excellent. only been on here a few months though.

I think the site is brilliant. I hope you don't leave. 😀

that's just nasty.
just because daily mail reading, middle management types with small ironic tattoos and singlespeeds are easy targets doesn't mean you resort to emailing their client/work people just for a laugh.

(same thing happened to the prawn when a nice STW member emailed his boss)