cycling salute

[Darkhorse85]

ive been riding motorcycles for years now and we all do the nod, except for harley riders caus there soooooo cool. only been on the roadbike (pushy) for awhile now and the nod seems to be the same, or a nice heya.
have to say that the amount of carbon and sponsor worn gear seems to diminish the hello factor. wankers i say.

the motorcycle wave is dropping your left arm straight and just pointing your fingers to the ground or a little in front of you. at least in the chicagoland area it is.

when i pass other cyclists i either nod my head down, or nod my head up, but most of the times i raise my left hand off the bars just a couple inches. They see it.

 

[e0richt]

And I bet they all have the shaggy hair that's not long but not short. Yeah the new generation of 14yo kids are all like that here, too...Dirt jumping is all they ride from what I can see. Dirt jumping and shovelling up private property..Nicht besondes gut!

I don't see them doing any dirt jumping... alot of them here seem to use the
bike to get somewhere but they are usually riding against traffic. and they are
going slow (about walking pace). You would think that they would realize that
raising the seat would allow them to go faster and easier. Because it looks like
if they tried to get any sort of speed, they would hurt their knees...

 

[PartisanRanger]

I don't see them doing any dirt jumping... alot of them here seem to use the
bike to get somewhere but they are usually riding against traffic. and they are
going slow (about walking pace). You would think that they would realize that
raising the seat would allow them to go faster and easier. Because it looks like
if they tried to get any sort of speed, they would hurt their knees...

I see this kind of stuff too, it really blows my mind. The strangest thing I see recreational bikers doing is pedaling at an extremely low cadence, seemingly barely enough to keep the bike upright.

 

[Smilf]

I generally wave or nod. Sometimes I get a response sometimes not, doesn't really matter to me.

Off topic but I have noticed that around my area a lot of the recreational cyclists have their saddles set low. Usually at the same hight as when the bought the bike. The teens seem to like to get MTB where the frames are too small and they set the saddle down as low as it can go. Their knees are almost hitting their faces when they are seated. Anyone else seen a similar trend?

Sure they aren't BMX bikes?

 

[brad g]

It was a knee-jerk reaction to get upset when I first encountered a couple of cyclists that didn't wave or nod, but in the end I decided it wasn't worth the effort of worrying about it. I wave to each and every cyclist I encounter, whether they return it or not isn't my concern. But just to be fair, most do, and it isn't the carbon and lycra factor that always determines it because I've gotten nods and waves from pro-looking riders and the eat sh*t look from grandpa on a huffy and vice versa. I am also a rmotorcycle rider, not a Harley, but a Suzuki (cruiser) and I've been snubbed and waved at by riders on every make/model/type of bike, so there doesn't seem to be a trend around here, just depends on the person.

 

[Scotttri]

I started with the wave, then moved on to the wrist flick, then it moved to the nod. Now I'll either do the nod or do nothing at all. When you think about it, any sort of greeting to an opposing rider is kind of pointless. When I'm driving my car I never wave at anybody, same with when I'm walking, unless it's a neighbor or something - what is it about the fact we both happen to be on bicycles that means we should give some sort of greeting to each other?

Where I live its a wave or a nod and it's extremely weird to not get acknowledged back, also say hello if i pass someone walking or Jogging and same response as well. Driving from town to town, we wave as we go passed fellow drivers as well, I guess it's the norm around here.

 

[heathb]

I had several people wave at me tonight, but I didn't wave back. I was too into what I was doing and trying to stay focused on working hard.

I think the harder you work the less you care about whats going on around you.

As far as bikers go, some just don't give a s**t about anything else. Their out their to ride and enjoy themselves and they don't want to spend their day waving at every one. Even though I don't consider motorcyclists in the same league as cycling, I like the fact that their out their fighting for the right to ride their bikes and not get ran over. I think they feel the same frustration that many cyclists feel when it comes to idiot drivers.

 

[Gretzky]

I wave, or nod to all of my fellow cyclist

 

[dgregory57]

I talked to a friend who spent a weekend on an island in Maine, and she was walking around. It was expected that everyone waved at everyone they passed (mostly locals). She said she got pretty tired of waving.

Around here, cyclists are so rare that I always wave while cycling, and usually get a wave back.

When I see most cyclists in town, it is the small framed full suspension *mart mountain bike with the seat as low as possible... Their knees look bent further at the bottom of their stroke than I am at the top of my stroke.

 

[e0richt]

I talked to a friend who spent a weekend on an island in Maine, and she was walking around. It was expected that everyone waved at everyone they passed (mostly locals). She said she got pretty tired of waving.

Around here, cyclists are so rare that I always wave while cycling, and usually get a wave back.

When I see most cyclists in town, it is the small framed full suspension *mart mountain bike with the seat as low as possible... Their knees look bent further at the bottom of their stroke than I am at the top of my stroke.

it is not just the "kids" around here either. There are some migrant farm workers that seem to get around on *mart bicycles and they too have the seat low and they go at a very slow pace. I have never seen them really pushing the gears to get where they want to go. I don't know if thats because they are tired from work or what... everytime I see that, I get the
urge to tell them how to make the bike more efficient for them to pedal.

 

[Guaps]

I waved this morning to a guy on the other side of the road, drifted a little to the right, almost hit a trash can, over-corrected to the left and a car honked at me. I thought I was going to get hit.

Anyone want to go for a ride with me?

Today is my second day on a road bike. Guess I need a little more practice before I start getting friendly and wave to everyone.

 

[brad g]

Yes, for goodness sake, keep your hands on the bars!

 

[asterope]

i like to aknowledge other cyclists on the road with me, so i give a little wrist flick, a nod... sometimes even an appreciative perve
the cycling community is like the oldskool volkswagen community... so im used to waving and keeping a friendly eye out and stopping to see if the broken down/punctured need help/oil/tyre levers.

as for harley riders... i dont know, they seem to be pretty nice around here. theres this one older bloke who always gives me a nod and a smile when im on my 50cc scooter i get nods from most harley riders... never from fellow scooterists tho.