back in Southern California, bikers wave or acknowledge each other. even I, as a Pillion rider, i wave too i know maybe it’s retarded but hey i want to acknowledge them
do you do that here too? i never saw it…
and this afternoon, as i was cycling at Richmond Park (again), i waved at another cyclist. i hope it was okay he just looked and smile hehehe
Aye, the way we do it over here is a bit of an exaggerated nod to the side. Turn your head about 45 degrees towards the other rider and give a great big nod of the head, so that it specifically doesn’t look like a lifesaver check.
Waving is usually reserved for a biker you specifically know, and is just usually the two main fingers raised in a semi-salute/wave thingy.
It’s a lot easier for you guys in the states to do the whole wave thing because you ride on the right hand side of the road which means you only need to take your hand away from the clutch. If we waved, we’d need to take our hand away from the throttle.
As stated above, we nod instead.
Also, if you’re cycling around London, please don’t adopt the attitude the majority of other cyclists have. Read this thread.
you are so right!! being on the right hand side of the road vs the left makes the difference DOH!
oh i follow the rules. i did this today at the park just to try i was curious there were so many of them!
though i still get a little confused at the round-about so i just exit and go back
It’s also a “motorcycle density” thing. If you waved to everybody on your workday commute in London you’d probably get squashed by 42 tons of semi trailer. ( Or an artic. if your in the UK)
My gentle 10 mile trip down the old A20 today elicited about 20 nods/waves including a young head banger on an RS125 and a couple of Harleys.
My commute, back in the day, used to get just the one wave from a copper on his own Tiger.
(Great rider. I used to follow him in the mornings when he was on day shift and learned loads from him once I’d learned his hand signals to me. Yeah, that included the half clenched fist pumped at 45 degrees once in a while.)
Oldguy is spot on really, you can’t nod or wave in central London you wouldn’t get anywhere and you would end up in a hospital ward with a pulled muscle in your neck.
Try riding on a sunny Sunday afternoon on less dense roads and you get a few nods…I usually find that the flashier the bike the more likely you are to get a nod, someone on a commuter bike usually don’t bother, regardless of the situation, because it is a habit not to. The Sunday rider with the nice bike that they ride purely for enjoyment is more likely to acknowledge you as a fellow rider as they spend less time on their bike and at times when there are less riders about.
In Spain they don’t seen to do much in the nod/wave dept. On the rare occasion I do get a wave a quick look in the mirror usually shows a non Spanish bike. I stopped doing it after getting no response from oncoming rider but always ready in case its a friendly oncoming:)
If you ride a smaller bike you will be engaging the clutch a lot more then if you have a larger bike. A 125cc bike for instance will skip through 4 gears to get to 50mph. A 1000cc sports bike may well get to 60mph in second gear.
All depends on the low end grunt of the engine. I particularly like the Suzuki GS500 for its low end grunt and the fact that you can drive around in 3rd gear and rarely have to leave that gear, even in traffic, it will take you from 10mph to 40-50mph without screaming the engine, which is pretty much the entire range you will ever see while driving in my area of London.