JanMM

Riding through a subdivision near the end of a modest 25 mile club ride today. A young fella in his front yard saw me on my V-Rex following behind another guy on a very nice titanium Serotta bicycle. The kid looked right at me and yelled "Cool bike!"

Priceless

djwid

Awesome!

karterjimm

Kids "get it", why don't adults?

StephenH

Aah, don't get too stuck up about it. I've heard that quite a bit on my Worksman cruiser, too. Different is good, but not everyone appreciates it.

cod.peace

On my first commute on my V-Rex last week I got 3 "Nice bike!" yells in the AM and a "That's cool!" on the way home in the PM. What can I say? Everybody loves the V-Rex

scarabeoguy

Because Kids have open minds. The older we get the more our minds..........................

karterjimm

I'm old and I ride a couple different 'bents. Oh that's right, wisdom comes with age........... Most adults don't want to try anything different, even though it may be good! I could convert kids to bents quickly if I could provide a bike in their size! The few interested adults usually won't even sit on my bike(s) let alone ride it, but they will ask questions incessantly.

dinges

Call me grumpy... but I wouldn't want strangers, be they children or otherwise, to yell *anything* at me. Not that my bike is cool, nor that it sucks. I do not appreciate being yelled at by strangers. Not even if it's meant as a compliment.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm completely immune to a little admiration; a few weeks ago I was riding the Challenge Hurricane and two 5-6 year old girls stopped walking and looked at me interested, and I heard one of them explaining to the other that my bike was a recumbent. I was impressed she recognized it for what it was. Because of other traffic I had to stop nearly in front of them; I think I made their day because of that. They were nice, polite and not obnoxious children who showed some curiosity but continued to mind their own business. I like that.

What others do or think about me or my bikes is of no concern to me. If they like the bent, fine. If they don't, that's fine too. I'm not out on a crusade to convert the rest of the world to start riding bikes or even recumbents. They work for me and I enjoy riding them, and that's good enough for me. What the rest of the world does is up to them. If they enjoy riding their car, by all means let them.

But also, let them mind their own business: no yelling, screaming, gesturing or tossing objects, please. BTW, I do think the above behaviour (yelling, tossing stuff at bicyclists) is more an American thing; I've never had anyone throw anything at me yet (in The Netherlands), or yell anything at me, neither positive nor negative remarks.

Peter.

recycled55

seems like "dinges" has a lot of bad days doesn't it?
recycled55

brewster49

Call me grumpy... but I wouldn't want strangers, be they children or otherwise, to yell *anything* at me. Not that my bike is cool, nor that it sucks. I do not appreciate being yelled at by strangers. Not even if it's meant as a compliment.

OK, I'll call you grumpy. Grumpy.

Call me sensitive, but you know what I hate? Small arms fire. Hard to dodge, even with a low profile.

BlazingPedals

Not surprising. I mean, to the unpracticed eye, a titanium Serotta looks remarkably like a 1980 hi-ten C.Itoh. or any of a thousand other road bikes built since then. A V-Rex is obviously different.

JanMM

Right. Kids pick up on "different", which might or might not be "better".

djwid

For my part I have noticed more reactions to my lowracer (raptobike) than my previous rides. The only bike I had that gets as much notice as the lowracer was my Trike (terratrike tour).

I love the attention though I have found that at popular cycling rest stops like Gateway park I need to budge time to talk about my bike with one of the people who will come to ask questions about it.