I don’t know what Chris said that resulted in the ban, but from multiple years of reading his posts in here, it’s easy enough to imagine the scenario: he was told to knock off some specific behavior by the mods, and he wouldn’t listen because he thought he was right.
I’ve had many exchanges with him over the years, and I can tell you from my experience, he could be off-putting in a way that actually interfered with the often good advice that he was trying to convey. Oftentimes, the problem with the advice or opinion he was rendering was that it was wrapped up in a creamy layer of contempt for the people he was giving the advice to. Chris simply couldn’t accept that he might be wrong about something, or that someone else’s experiences didn’t align with his. More to the point, he seemingly couldn’t accept the idea that, once he’d dispensed his wisdom, the other person didn’t just collapse under the weight of his logic and fall in line with his opinion. He would keep beating the subject to death, with no idea how to simply withdraw. Nowhere did I see this trait more aptly demonstrated than in the thread he started about why do people like the Mitas E07 tire. He didn’t start that thread to gain an insight into why some guys liked it, he started it because he wanted to argue that his dislike of them was the superior position, and that people who didn’t agree with him were simply inexperienced, ill informed riders. Even when people explained to him the reasons they liked it, he continued to double down and argue over what was entirely a subjective opinion. It was like having an extended argument over whether blue is a better color than red. And I told him that in the thread, so this wouldn’t come as a revelation to him if he read it now. I saw the same thing happen in a thread discussing how a motorcycle shop operated. He simply couldn’t accept that his experiences weren’t the universal standard, even when people who actually ran motorcycle shops chimed in with opinions that were opposed to his. Having a storehouse of wisdom isn’t much good if you present it to people with an air of smug condescension. People tend to get a little bristly when they’re being talked down to.
He very well may be a wonderful guy in person; the problem is, most people will never know him in person. Their sum total of knowledge of him will be what he posts in here on the forum. One huge reason I got off Facebook eight years ago was that I didn’t like seeing the way a lot of my friends presented themselves when the filter of in-person contact was removed. They were like different people on line. I’m still friends with them, but if my only knowledge of them was what I’d read on line, I doubt that I’d want to be in the same room with some of them.
I’m sorry he got banned, because he did have useful things to contribute. But I can also understand the frustration of the mods in trying to curtail some of his on line behavior.