I'm not talking about here, but most bike riders I come across strike me as quite anti-social. Every morning I go out for a ride. Now I don't want to be seen as putting people in boxes but the more kit a rider has, the less social they seem to be. You can see them coming ... first the Giro or equivalent helmet, then the "Team I Spent a Fortune" skin tight shirt and the "look how many socks I have in my nutcracker shorts". They're constantly gauging your ride and if you wave and say hello, they just look away. Maybe they're not impressed with my bricky's labourers flouro shirt or my baggy shorts and blue back pack containing phone, tyres and pump etc. You'd still think they'd say "hi" back tho.

Oh no, not another "he didn't wave back, he's a xxx" thread!

Hi Rob
Guess bike snobs are a global phenomena-surprised tho 'bout Australia, expected in my neck of the woods,Colorado.
Am returning to cycling after a ten year hiatus. Used to ride with a Club and built my now 30 yr old
Trek frame with quality components. Have decided that a used mtn or comfort bike is now the way to go as I live 3 flights up and physically unable to carry bike up & down and would prefer to lock
it at apartment bike rack w/o worrying about theft. Will also be using a loaded backpack inc pack
fishing rod... need simple transport to local fishing holes. Think I'll wait for the "elite" to wave at me
first!

You will learn.

There is a "Supposed" heirarchy amongst riders. So many different grades and classes and it is worse than the British feudal system that you got away from when your ancestors vacated these lands.

But like the feudal system- The various classes do not mix or even recognise each other. Just get a cloth cap and follow the following link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0DUsGSMwZY

Good one stapfam

When I first started riding in 2000 and rode my *lowly* Raleigh R600 and wore no name jerseys and had unshaved legs this happened all the time.
Since I started wearing respectable jerseys , shave my legs, and ride a Litespeed, it never happens. I always get a wave or nod.

I guess *beauty* really is in the eye of the beholder.

As I ride almost exclusively on bike paths/trails/MUPs, I rarely encounter anyone who doesn't acknowledge me. I also rarely encounter anyone riding a road bike in typical road kit. But of the people I encounter in that select group, I'd say about 75% of them do not acknowledge me, as compared to about 5% of all of the rest.

However it is a small sample size. I doubt I have encountered more than 20 people on road bikes wearing road kit over the past 2 years of riding trails.

Some folks are friendly in real life, some are not friendly.

Those same folks are likely friendly or not friendly when they are on a bike.

Socks............what socks?

Totally agree with Dnvr on this one! I ride my local MUP quite a lot and wave at every cyclist I see. The roadies (with or without Team Kit) are consistant micro-wave (no, not the oven), just raising four fingers up while the thumb stays on the bars (aero esp.).

Some "Freds" wave, but most don't. I see this one Freddly guy almost every time; I wave, he doesn't, but I can't resist, I always wave to him! Then once, last week, he was stopped on the MUP for some reason, and I said, "Hi, how you doin'?" . . . and he actually answered back. I guess he just couldn't resist such overt friendlyness!

So you just never know. I've found recumbent riders about half and half with more waves from long-wheelbase than short wheelbase 'bent riders.

Keep in mind, though, I am usually dressed in cycling shorts and (non-team) jersey, with helmet . . . so maybe the non-wavers just don't like my type!

Rick / OCRR

While I tend to acknowledge just about anyone I see I have to defend some of my new found roadie friends. Not all mind you but people like most of my friends. I haven’t had a real jersey until late January and now I have three that I wear with pride because the match my Bibs. My shoes are even a good match for the kit. But most often if you see me alone heading down the road it is because I have been dropped by the larger group and I am huffing and puffing for all I am worth to catch up or take a short cut to cut them off. In that mode it is all I can do to breath and all I can see is the road about 15 feet in front of me and my front wheel.

I know none of the rest of you ever have to play catch up like that but I am rather new and slow so if you ever see me and I don’t wave it is simply because A. I didn’t see you. B. I didn’t have the energy. C. I was P.O. ed about being dropped again. Other wise I will wave and if by some miracle I catch you and am passing I will even talk.

Mostly when I ride by, people not only wave, they laugh out loud. Then again, who can resist an old fat man in team kit with a large smiley face front and back on the jersey.

Acts of micro-aggression.... meaning some folks don't want to be friendly, and feel that any social pressure to do so has little or no substance. They acknowledge who and what they want to acknowledge when and where they want to acknowledge it... much like the bulk of modern society in the western world.

As long as they don't jam a minipump into my spokes I don't really care.

Very antisocial IMO. I'm a Fred but when I see a a roadie, they never even say hi or Boo!... I rode by this guy about a month ago. He took my wheel but never said a word. We did manage to ride together well for nearly 15 mile but he said nothing! Didn't even smile for the camera!

Then a couple of weeks ago, I ran into a roadie on a Masi singlespeed. There were only a couple of others out there in the rain but this guy pretended to not know me!

Who's the scary looking guy wearing yellow?

The most anti-social guy I've met was a teenager who passed me while I was climbing a hill on Wilshire Blvd in L.A.

When he passed, he suddenly pulled over to the right as he got in front of me. Our wheels met rear to front and I went down.

I picked myself up and hauled down the road to work. As I passed him, he stiff-armed me into traffic and we both went down when my rear wheel tacoed.

Now that's anti-social!



Did I mention that that section of Wilshire went through the original territory of MS-13.

It's no wonder he wouldn't acknowledge you Mr. Beanz, your helmet strap is slightly twisted.

We may be thinking too much here...
I've been riding as an adult for almost 40 years. When I started, in the early '70s, I might go a week or more without seeing another cyclist. I moved from the San Francisco area to Reno, Nev., in 1978, and rode for more than a year here before I saw ANY adult riders. In those days, we all waved.
When I do the same weekend rides now that I did in, say, 1980, I can easily see from a dozen to as many as 50 riders. I kept track last Saturday, the first nice day in several weeks, and I encountered 37 riders on an 18-mile loop. That's a wave every half-mile, on average.
FWIW, I date back to the days when imported cars were rare and drivers used to wave to each other. There was a strict protocol--MG and Triumph owners could wave to each other, but a Jaguar owner wasn't required to acknowledge a wave from a Sunbeam, and so on and on and on.
That all vanished sometime in the early '70s, and it's just as well. Nothing personal, but I'm waved out.

Now the question becomes: Do you wave back at everybody who waves at you?

Scary guy in yellow? I'm not sure but this is the same big ugly guy in red. Not sure who he is but I've seen him chase guys like Rick@OCRR up the mountain!

Tell Grumpy pig his shorts don't match his jersey.

I would but he's very antisocial. He didn't wave the entire time he was there!

Ya, I'm a waver, I wave and say good morning/afternoon to everyone, bicycle riders, dog walkers, jogger, roller bladers, etc. Still I never expect anyone to wave back but a lot do. I rode motorcycles for 30 years, each, type of scoot rider has a special wave so I guess I need to learn the "specific wave per type of bicycle.

I took the decals off my POS Roadmaster MTB-clone and i've noticed that when I'm riding local area "EASY" singletrack, the REAL MTB riders will do the "head nod", then give me a really disgusting look when they see the austabula crank and realize I'm on a Wally-Mart Special When I rode MTB's back in the early 80's, no one CARED about what equiptment you had or weither you had a "specific style" of bike for the type of riding, now it seems the "1st. thing that happens when you slow down and meet another MTB'er, is they do a automatic scan of what you ride and it's level of equiptment to see if you worthy of their company, SAD.

Oh well, I just wave anyway, continue my ENJOYING MY RIDE and hope they are having as much FUN as I am. I guess I'm a FRED too as my jersey is plain and I wear black bicycle shorts cause there CHEAP next to the way cool baggy MTB shorts, well that and I'm old and fat too, LOL!