The truth is out: Many adventure bike riders are just snobs

Sound like you need a group hug Andyman!

I look down on superbaaik riders...do you have the denim or leather cutoff jacket?lol

I generally only greet adventure type bike riders.....and sometimes proper Harley riders if i can see they are not posers. I don't like roadies in general therefore i must be a snob....the BMW roadies however are perhaps more sophisticated and tend to be an older crowd. As Ullyses says "grow old disgracefully' ! I like

ps. Promise to crack you a nod & wave ok ! :-)

The most disturbing thing abut this post is your struggle to keep odours under control.

May i suggest an occasional bath between those thousands of kms?

I try and acknowledge all bikers including scooters.

I'm with PistonPete on this one.......1 GROUP HUG for Andy at the next club meet;-)

What about the odour?

[/ lurk ]

well I vote for being out the outermost ring of said hug.. and I'll bring along listerine, mum for men, and possibly household bleach..

that should do it..

I wonder if ear plugs can double as nose plugs

[ lurk ]

Just don't try and hug me when you're parked next to me at the robot on Blaauwberg Road, Pete ;)  What WILL the neighbours think?? a KTM rider ( a dirty one at that) hugging me??

for DS riders that are too lazy to wave, but don't want to be considered snobs.hand

Well as a lowly road bike rider [in your view] may I infer from your post that you equate Harley's with dual purpose bikes? I suppose the HD off road capabilities are enshrined in their agricultural propensities. [HD a.k.a. as Massey Fergusson Racing Division]. How does one differentiate a non-poser from a poser on a HD? I suppose a good start is if they are more than 50kms away from the nearest News Cafe or HD dealership.

As a member of Ulysses as well I endorse your sentiments, we have a healthy attitude towards bikes and biking. What you ride is not important, we have all sorts as members - even an HD or two! :)

Thanks for the reminder Andy - I am sure that I have been guilty of not greeting on more than one occassion.  In my defence - if  I go any faster than 80km I have to keep both hands on the "wheel"  :o)

Cloud - where can I order the "hand"?

On the R1200RT, the 800 and 1200 GS bikes and the KTMs , as a rule, >70% do not greet back.

Guys on adventure bikes greet me on my adventure bike but many ignore me on my RT.

Andy were you standing in traffic when this happened? 

Personally I think that it has something to do with the fact that you have 4 jackets and only 3 hemluts, of which only 1 is disticntive!!!

Cloud can those hands be mounted on the handle bars, and are they available in various colours?

And most important, different wave speeds....very fast for RT, slower for Adv riders, slow/ stationary for Harley and KTM, and retractable for scooters/ Vukas

They come in pink with optional yellow dish-washing gloves.
But wait.... thats not all.... if you buy now, you'll get free nail polish for your magic hand. 

So, I expect all those darstadly unfriendly adventure bike riders to avail themselves at the next club meeting in criply ironed pink shirts for a training session on how to prize your hand off the handle bar and elevate it while bending it at the wrist. This will be followed by a group hug allround. Now if Geoff could only find the ex barmaid, it would make the hug much more satisfying. ;)

I've been guilty of not greeting other bikers, but this is usually at Killarney when wrestling with a certain 900 Kawasaki - sorry! :)

Dear Aunt Abbey, as I rode, sorry drove home,  in the van this evening, I waved to scooters, 650 Gs's, Vukas, a number of bikes, the makes of which I did not recognise, none of these waved back, except one,  Ruan and his wife René on a 800 GS...they gave me a toot and a wave, and I tooted back.

Please, you are the highest authority besides Father Patrick, and I'm scared to visit him without ATGATT, am I a snob?

For years now the BMWMCC has and is a policy of welcoming bikers, irrespective of the model they ride.

We've tried to dispell the us and them attitude and devleop a culture of openeness and acceptance of any BMW rider without qualifying them by road-bike or DS bike.

DS bikes have far outgrown road bikes in volume, and I kinda hoped for amore mature response, but what the hell, the culture seems to be changing.......

or maybe I'm outgrowing some people as I develop and they don't. I'll still greet all bikes,

Thats just how it is.

Genuine HD riders are full of bugs & wear them with a certain panache...

Hey Andyman, it looks like you ride for the brand as well & thats ok. I just like to ride bike but do however like the BMW guys as well (hiding his head in shame) and am always prepared to be KTM on call...

Cloudy might be right here....you spending to much time in tight leathers & not enough in Gortex Airvents...lol

Ok, lets be a little more serious.

The R1200RT has a seat hight of 840mm, the 1150adv has 900mm and the 1200adv has 910mm. If you look at it that way most adv riders do look down on road riders purely because of seat hight. This might make them slightly less visible and reduce your chances of a wave.

Take into account that most road riders do not greet adv riders (my opinion based purely on my own observations, this excludes bmw riders in general) and this would in turn lead to a decrease in the amount of times a adv rider greats a road rider.

If you have a learners licence it is actually against the law to remove one hand from the handle bar, only fully licensed riders are allowed to remove one hand(to wave) from the handle bar. I speculate that there might be one or two people worried that a roadie could be a ghost squad member and not wave, either out of fear or out of disgust.

I don't know if these where the type of answers you where looking for.

I personally try and wave at every thing on two wheels even cyclists get a nod.

Daniel Nelson

I did a quick Google, this is what I found.....see #2......OOOPS!!!

–noun

Daniel....that's way to technical!

I think that within the motorcycling community (not just bmw) there are very different cultures and people stick to what they know or ride. I feel very far removed from a roadie because besides riding two wheels we have nothing in common. I don't even aspire to ride a soooperbaaaik....at all.

When i see a roadbike my presumption is punk, idiot, loon, death, hillbilly, Jerry Spinger etc...i cannot help it...

A guy riding a big touring bike however is different because although he rides on tar we share the spirit of open roads & touring. Similarly i identify with Enduro & MX, Dakar & Rallye Raid guys because they represent the racing side of dirt riding.

Personally I don't wave that much, and really don't wish to be waved to, the odd greeting is fine, but riding is like enjoying a sunset....a running commentary spoils it, and the same for most activities, they are, after all, ultimately private.

If we're gonna get serious, lets look at the facts.

Andyman says he's an authority on this, and that his observation is a fact, but.... based on what facts?

Have you taken into consideration that it may not just be the bikes, but a combination of factors?

Bike A + Helmet B + Jacket C will get one response.

Bike A + Helmet and Jacket B will get a different one.

How does an observation become a fact? 

Yup, and a more svelte figure, better perfumed, with long blond hair waving out the back.....98% waves??

Pictures please!!!

Wave!

Helmet for grumpy.

I don't wave, I have enough friends already

Just kidding... I will wave or nod the head if I see the other biker and if I can.

Whether others greet back or not does not bother me much.

Hmm, looking at my earlier post it seems a little harsh, and that I'm rudely questioning Andyman's observations.

That was not my intention.

I was trying to re-engage the conversation about observation, and steer it away from rubber hands.

When I'm in a good mood I'll wave at other bikers, and acknowledge cage drivers, etc. But sometimes when riding I'm lost in my thoughts and thus might miss something going on around me.

What I'm getting at is that what we observe around us is largely dependent on our moods.

I always acknowledge bikers when on my bike, but I live in the platteland where all farmers (a) have white bakkies and (b) wave to everyone else. They all know me as I'm the only one with a blue bakkie, but I can't differentiate between all the white bakkies, so PLEASE, where can I get one of those hands, I wanna fix it onto my bakkie.

Them waving all the time, I always think of the "hairspray" joke.  Very briefly, for those that are not familiar: a bunnyhugger hits and kills a hare whilst driving, so a girl stops, finding him sulking next to the road. She says, no prob; out comes a spraycan; applies it to the dead animal which gets up and runs off, every now and again stopping and waving at them. So the guy enquires what she'd sprayed on the animal. He read on the can "Hairspray: Revives dead hair and adds a permanent wave"

Have some guys got that on them? Ha ha