Over the past several years, this place has lost a lot of the camraderie it once had. In addition to all the questions about maintenance and modifications, there used to be a lot of joking between members, ride summaries, and jokes posted. Now it seems a lot of the posts are someone selling thier Bandit, and the occasional B1250 owner looking to join the conversation.
I don't blame anyone for these changes, but BA has become a dull place to hang out. My best guess is that many of the long-term Bandit owners have moved on to another bike, and the Bandit brand just doens't get as much press as it once did. The B1200S was generally reviewed in all the major mags each year, despite the bike never being all that popular in the US (like in England!). But the 1250 version was reviewed once when it first came out, and rarely since then.
I kept my B1200S when I bought my FJR this summer. Even though things are quiet here, I prefer the "personality" of this board over that of the FJR Forum. Those guys discourage conversation by criticizing anyone who asks a question that has been asked before. The tone of the conversation is "hey jerk, why haven't you read the FAQa like you agreed to do when you signed up?" Heck, half the conversation at this type of board is going to be people raising an issue that has been raised before. There are only so many different questions that can be raised about a specific bike, or any other physical object. And sometimes the opinions about that topic will have changed. Every year, I'm sure football BBS ask whether player X still has what it takes to lead his team to the playoffs and beyond...what's the harm in generating conversation? The fact that the search function on every BBS I have been on totally sucks makes it hard to check previous dialog before asking the quesiton. So I don't bother. Besides, the fairing on the FJR is inscrutable, so it's hard to do minor maintenance for yourself when you can't figure what hidden screw is still holding that piece of fragile plastic on.
So I miss the old comraderie here, and I have not felt any comraderie at FJR Forum, so I end up not posting stuff at either board.
Sorry to sort of turn this into a rant about another BBS, but I guess seeing the difference in tone between one and the other makes me miss the Bandit Alley of five years ago even more.