Any one on two wheels is a friend

This is spot on and I don't disagree with any of it. Nobody who has actually bothered to go on rides, or drinks, or get involved in stuff thinks the forum is rubbish. It's this:

Unfriendly forum, not unfriendly people.

This 'how men bond' stuff would possibly explain why we are 90% men though. Although not sure bitchiness is a reserve of heterosexual men - gays and women are quite good at it too!

Corny is hitting the nail, if not on the head, then certainly not on his thumb.

I see the the banter and bitchiness as self-policing. It ensures that if you can get past it, we're going to get along just fine.

Piss-taking, banter and bitchiness is how men bond. (It's not how women bond, I'll grant you, but I'm not a woman so it's not for me to comment on how a woman might find it.) Anyway to get back to the point, if you can talk to and be talked to like that with a smile on your face and in your heart then it's a sure sign you are good friends. If you don't get this then are you that interested in being mates? Because if not, if you're not going to come on rides, come to drinks, lend tools or help, or any of the things that mates do, then not only is the forum not for you, you're not for the forum.

However it definitely goes too far sometimes, and I despair when newbies are pounced on. Perhaps if everyone's first 5 posts were visible directly on their profile pages then they might be reminded that they were new once, and more likely than not, their first posts were not miracles of literary insight.