Originally Posted by kf5nd
I think it's the social class thing at work. Dress with a little bit of "blinginess", and people give you more respect.
The people who usually ride bikes around are zoned-out suicide teenagers, poor illegal immigrants (sorry, it's the truth), or people who have no license due to DUI.
If you dress to differentiate yourself from them, you get more respect.
My impression from the responses on this thread is- the negative stereotyping of "blinginess" challenged cyclists is not the product of motorists but rather that of narcissistic cyclists who choose to adapt the "Professional Cyclist Look".
I really doubt that motorists pay all that much attention to the relationship between cyclists' appearance and their social status. Same goes for expections of predictability based on a cyclist's "Professional Cyclist Look." I could be wrong but I'd pay more attention to this speculation if any of this negative stereotyping actually came from motorists rather than from the narrow slice of cyclists who prefer the "Blingy" look.