That's not really something you want to be shouting about, especially if you're going to put that much info in your profile.

How do you work that one out? :confused1:

Most of those are 16yo's with Chinese scooters bought on eBay for £500. Very few have any intention of sticking with 2 wheels once they're 17. As soon as they're old enough and have the cash to buy a Saxo/Clio/Corsa, they'll be finished with bikes until the mid-life crisis comes around. Look at the new registration figures for 50cc scoots. There's not enough bikes above 125cc on the new and used market to go round if all those kids decided to take it further than CBT.

Old Vespa and Lambretta owners are a different story. Speak to the real "old school" scooter riders who are involved in their club scene. You'll find many have got a real chip on their shoulder about bikers and are still living in the days of mods and rockers, where as most bikers couldn't care less. I will nod to them and it's their problem if they don't wave back.

That's obviously aimed at the likes of me. You're tarring everyone with the same brush. What was that about being cliquey?

Actually, some (but certainly not all) of the most cliquey riders I've found, that won't wave or stop for anyone unless they're riding the same are Pan-European riders. That's their problem though.
I know of a Pan rider who went to talk to people on a Pan riders club stand at a show recently and his face mustn't have fitted because they just didn't want to know him.
I tried to start a conversation with a UK reg Pan rider and pillion on the Grossglockner last year. We were stopped while the road was cleared of falling rocks so nothing else to do. What a pair of miserable ****s.
A******* off the bike = A******* on the bike.

Still, I'll nod to them and it's their problem if they don't.

maybe if you chatted to them then they would stick with bikes too?? I have both. It's not aimed at you, rather the groups that hang out at my local biker cafe and no-one mixes anymore. Think it's less the wavings an issue as the herd mentality of some people. I really respect guys like you, the ones who wave at everyone even if they're being a dick and trying to chat to all bikers, need more!!!

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I'll be down in your neck of the woods (Portsmouth) next week, (Tuesday 25th, catching the ferry to Santander) I'll be on a Azure blue Triumph Trophy and nodding and waving at all bikes!
My 2 pence worth, BMW GS riders are some of the worst for not acknowledging you.



Trophymick

Highly trained engineers in Munich have spent the last 90 years looking at handlebars. They have concluded that it is better to have at least two grips as this seems to be the average number of hands the vehicle operators have. (They don't talk about the indicator design boys, who have three thumbs due to coming from a very isolated village in the mountains where the winters are long and TV reception poor) . The BMW users manual therefore clearly states that the operator must have a hand on each grip and that failure to do so invalidates the warranty.

I actually read the manual that came with the Bonneville the other week (only had it six years!). It seems that adjusting the chain while the bike is running isn't a good idea. I mean, who'd have guessed.

Copied from another group:

YouTube - Bikers and Harleys

You can IMHO substitute just about any single make club for "Harley". Gave a smile which is unusual for US style stand up.

Andy

hee hee i frickin love you
xxxxxxxxxxxx

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I would just like to point out that as I ride a GS everyday and wave at anyone and everyone your theory is not completly accurate!

My warranty was up ages ago so this no longer applies.
I do however love mountains but sadly don't have three thumbs as this could be a good way of getting free !

If your ever passing this way be sure to stop by and I will get my bike out, sit on it and wave to you, just to keep you happy!

Maybe. I don't have a problem talking with CBT kids on bikes. Some have a genuine interest and you can tell if they'll take it further. It's the attitude of the chavs on uninsured wrecks that gets me. I'm sure everyone here has had a tracksuit wearing yoof on a 2 wheeled hairdryer trying to cut them up in traffic or baiting them into a "race".

I had an interesting discussion a while ago with a non-biker, who said riding bikes are just about making a statement to others. Any reason other than posing was totally lost on him. The reason I'm saying that is because, like it or not, the general public still see motorcycles as having an attitude and almost anti-social edge or stigma attached to them. In my opinion, that's what attracts kids to them. Look at the likes of Harley who are almost trying to sell a lifestyle, rather than a bike and the marketing which is aimed specifically at the financially well off, mid-life crisis, new rider.

On the subject of bike meets, I don't really bother with them now unless they're at the end of a really good ride out.

On a lighter note, I got talking to an old boy with a very tidy Yamaha Diversion/Watsonian Squire outfit this afternoon. He must have been in his late 70's/early 80's but we just got chatting about old bikes. Started showing me photo's of the Ariel Square Four outfit that he had in the 60's and how he'd passed his test on his boss's Vincent Black Shadow!!!.

I'm 32 and I ride sportsbikes mostly, despite them being overkill for our roads. However, I can't think of any other hobby, pastime, activity, call whatever you will, that would bring me and this guy into a conversation.
Keep waving

I went out to play on Saturday and wondered if I had become invisible. Everything was fine for about three miles, weather nice, and improving, roads clear and the bike (a Pan as it goes Craig) was warming up nicely. I noticed a bike (Drag Star I think) pulled over and stopped to ask if he needed any help. Much to my relief he was just stretching his legs and didn't need help (I'm more than slightly cack handed, so I would probably have been little use to him, but I always stop). After wishing each other good days I carried on, but I must have become invisible

It was a nice day and the roads were full of bikes but none of them returned my wave; the classic riders, the sportsbike scratchers, the cruisers, the tourers (adventure and traditional), even another Pan ignored me. On the outward leg of my ride just two riders waved back; an old boy on an old and well used (ie not highly polished classic) Triumph, and a youngster (I'm guessing) on a 125 under L plates. The homeward leg was much better; visibility must have been restored over coffee & cake (you don't think I'm fading away and they couldn't see me until I'd eaten?).

Frankly however, I don't care if you ignore me - I'll continue waving as long as I'm even occasionally acknowledged, and I'll continue stopping even if I'm little help. I'm too old and too lazy to change the habits of a lifetime.

The day and weather was your issue there. Get yourself into the peaks or dales on say New Years day and the proportion of guy's who'll wave back will be over 90%. If it's a nice day on Monday and you are on the approach roads to the Cat and Fiddle, it'll be closer to 10%.

As for stopping to help and mechanical ability, don't worry about it. A working mobile phone, a ride a few miles home to collect tools/spares, carrying a flat to somewhere with a working compressor, the loan of the right sized spanner, loan of a gallon of petrol; I consider myself half competant at fixing bikes but that's the usual help you end up giving if someone is stuck rather than stripping their gearbox (unless they are Ural owners).

Rant #2 ; a question to the BMW and Pan owners, what's all this playing a coppers thing (not that the vast majority do it)? There I was in the Repmobile on the M-62, it's ****ing down and I'm early, so it's lane 1 and 56 mph. In the mirrors I see a bike lit up like a Christmas tree, the rider in white helmet and lime green suit with badges on the fairing/tank/panniers. He's doing about 75 tailgating a car in lane 3. Until you got close enough to see the bike was a GS with a roll sack on the seat he looked like the Lego Plod. The green suit and lights I get, they make you show up, that's why the police wear them. The badges and checker style reflectors deliberatley meant to make him look like a copper had two effects in my mind. First of all, that car he was pushing wasn't going to go over 75 mph if it took him until the motorway ran out in Hull to get past the car in lane 2 and pull over. Fake plod matey wasn't going anywhere fast. Second, if the real coppers do him for speeding, they are going to throw in impersonating too, or at least ask about the mods and his insurance. That's big **** if they go to town. I've seen Pan's decked out this way too.

Anyone follow the logic of doing this? Some sort of buzz from having the cagers stare at you? I had a white F650. The odd car would get out of the way faster than on my red bike, but as I was wearing a red lid and black suit, if they thought I was official they needed their eyes testing. Really can't see the point in doing the whole fake thing.

Andy

Hey Andy. Are you sure your impersonator wasn't a hospital courier. I see them all the time. I believe their mane purpose is to transport organs and blood. They usually ride Pans and GS bikes and have the green and white deco, but with ambulance service badges and the words 'blood' or 'organs' written somewhere.

just a thought.

Could have been, but the chequered details looked blue to me.

If he was a courier he needed to read Roadcraft again.

Andy

Haha! Yeah blue and white is usually plod deco, green and white is ambulance services. Im now very tempted to paint my scrambler green and stick a few ammo boxes on the back, brimming with loose ammo and grenades, strap an M16 to my back and pretend im a army motorcycle courier!

or maybe paint it red with blue sirens and attach the garden hose to the back....the list is endless!

Like most others this thread has been amazing and illuminating. When i first started out in the early 70's with a bantam 175 and a 2nd hand greasy leather jacket, I was ignored by those on Commandos and Rocket Threes, even Tiger Cubs would only grudgingly acknowledge me. Scooters were a strict no no and one sure way of being beaten to death by a horde in parkas on lambrettas that could outrun me. As I got bigger and better bikes I got more smiles and waves and sense of being accepted. Things changed at the end of the 70’s with the Japscrap and Brit oilers encampments and you were either one or the other and never should the twain meet.
As the British bike industry imploded and every one rode around on Jap screamers or those things with lots of exhausts old rivalries passed away and as we were all on a Jap machine (the only ones you could buy then, early 80’s) every one waved or acknowledged each other with the exception of various chapters with colours. (these guys still do not wave as its uncool)
Today in 2009 I find that the encampment thing is alive and well although it no longer depends upon the make of bike but the type. I nod to everyone and stop at the first opportunity if a fellow biker is stopped at the roadside but find it is (in general) the big tourers, mainly BMs and Goldwings/Panams that ignore me. It is nice to hark back to a bygone age when we were all friendly and part of an exclusive club but the truth is it never was.
It is one of the reasons I love the HUBB. There is a sense of camaraderie here and everyone I have met so far, either at meets or camping has been great. I wish most of the rest of the biking community I have met over the years had been like the people I have met here so far.

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2012 Kawasaki W800
1997 NX 650 Dominator

Nice to see a less "rose-tinted" view. I think there's a certain amount of snobbery that goes on but that's never going to change.

I distinctly remember the last Goldwing rider that waved back as it was a German registered one in white and pulling a matching trailer. This was on the Durham/Cumbria boundary. Not my thing but it's got two wheels and a motor so

Funnily enough, I do know of a bike instructor who uses the slightest spit of rain as an excuse to wear an ex-police, hi-vis waterproof jacket, complete with blue chequered stripes (see eBay).
I've ridden an ex-police pan and people do get out the way pretty quick. A huge white bike does have road presence and there's certainly no need to tailgate.

Maybe it's the police or bike instructor link but I don't know what it is with Pan owners. No offence intended to MarkE as it's obviously a minority but it is noticeable, except from those who ride them as "company" bikes who will wave back, at least those in Durham and Cleveland anyway!

I've ridden quite a few Pan's, both ST11 and 13's and they really are great bikes and are deceptively quick. Surprised there's not more Pan owners on here really.