Gee Platy, I read it as loaded with an element of pity not contempt. I also first ran across the word in motorcycle magazines. I'm not sure I've used it in any posts but if I have I meant to express pity for the pathetic driver trapped in a metal cage. Isn't that how it was used in the post from fordfasterr about helping a motorist so isolated from his fellow motorists that he only got a hand from someone not in a cage? I thought the motorcyclists were using it to distinguish the freedom of being "in the wind" from being restrained and surrounded by glass and steel.