Too Tall has spoken, let it be so
And a satisfied member writes:
I'm one of the new guys, and primarily just a lurker. But I've had a paean to Vsalon rattling around in my head for a long time. This thread seems like as good a place as any to put it.
Let me just say what a revelation this place was when I first stumbled across it. I had spent a little time at some other bike forums, but mostly those places were characterized by screeching and stupidity and hubris and misdirected venom. Mostly, those places just made me sad -- for our sport and for the people who posted there.
I'm sure you've all experienced it, but I can't even explain what it was like to discover this place for the first time. It's full of people who love bikes -- just about all bikes, including a sick love for those in the Haters thread -- and know what they're talking about from long experience in the saddle. People who get (and in some cases made) the history of our sport and who don't accept as axiomatic that Carbon 'n Cunego are "better" than Moser and Alloy. People who have healthy (and, in most cases, well-earned) egos, but who also have enough respect, good humor and bonhomie to make this place work, so that ball-busting almost never begets hurt feelings and petty grudges. A place where somebody knows the answer to every technical question you could think to ask. A place where legit pros and hardmen associate with and are -gasp- friendly with, fat slow dudes like me.
A place where there is a Correct Way (or Ways, depending on the day) to design, build and ride a bike, but where the shared love of cycling is powerful enough to overcome a deviation from that appointed path. A place where white tape is de rigeur, but genuine and well-reasoned eccentricity is cherished above blind adherence to a norm.
I've learned more about the ethos of cycling here than I would have learned in a dozen years anywhere else.
This is a special place. I love it here. Thanks for being rad.
Ben
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