It used to bother me that nobody acknowledged my nods or waves when out on my road bike but you soon get over It. I think large groups of roadies do tend to think they are pro’s when riding out on clubs runs at times and like to blank any rider on the other side of the road. They also don’t like being overtaken by muddy Cx bikes either.
Nowadays I normally just give them a wave without actually looking at them .

Cumbrian roadies must be of a happier breed, I always get a nod or wave. Even if I’m on a slicked MTB.

mrmo – Member

@idlejon, when on the side of the road fixing punctures, i find i am more likely to get a roadie offer help than the same situation off road

I’m guessing that you have more people passing you in that situation than would pass me. 😉 My last few punctures have been fixed without seeing anybody at all. Just empty hills, forests and open moorland.

My grandfather was a card carrying member of the Peugeot car club of Australia, he used to wave at every other Peugeot on the road and get quite upset if someone didn’t wave back.

I tried to transfer this philosophy when I bought my first vehicle in the UK, an R reg Transit. I consider myself the founding member of the International Brotherhood In Old Transits club (IBIOT) and would wave to any Transit coming the other way. This got quite tiresome after a while considering how many Transits there are on the road, so I restricted my waves to Mk5 (smiley) vans, and when that got too much just high roof SWB variants… I expect your lack of acknowledgement reflects the increase in the cycling population – you can’t wave to everyone.

You rock my world

To be honest I’d be pretty p****d off I was a roadie.

I usually give a polite nod to cyclists coming the opposite way because I’m a friendly warm hearted guy. My experience is the flashier the roadie the less likely you are to get a response, so loads of bright carbon and Lycra and you can forget about a Morning/Afternoon/Good day to you sir

There is always one road rider that will wave back
That will be the one that cellotaped every other ones hands to the bars

I’ve passed / been passed by as many mardy roadies as I have Strava chasing mtbers.

There will always be less social types or those that object to your choice of bike, length of sock, whatever. Insert joke about velominati rules or even ‘is it enduro?’ video to taste. If a wave, nod, greeting isn’t returned then consider why it was offered.

Most cyclists seem reasonable, friendly types to me although you obviously have to allow for state of exhaustion or whatever at times 🙂

I was surprised at the rider who turned down a freely offered power link that would have saved a long walk recently though…

I was surprised at the rider who turned down a freely offered power link that would have saved a long walk recently though…

What strings were attached?

Ride with a woman. They all smile and say hello then…

to be fair, the OP does ride with a couple of girls

😆

Had the same thing the other day on the road bike.. i was in baggies, AM45s and a peaked helmet though.

I always get a hello from MTB riders, stopping to help me when having s mechanical etc.

Never once on the road have I been offered help (baggy wearing slick MTB rider mind) the people who nod back are usually commuters in civvies rather than Lycra clad racing snakes

Peaked helmets – I find if I ride my road bike with a peaked helmet then I have to crane my neck back to see properly and it hurts, I assumed this is why road helmets don’t have peaks – is this not the case, and don’t all you lot using one helmet for both not get painful necks?

I don’t care whether people say hello or not, it doesn’t bother me either way unless it’s remote enough to be awkward not to do so.

For me it’s about whether someone might need help, and that’s more likely to be the case on a trail than on a road due to the relative frequency of passing users. There’s also more of a natural opportunity to be friendly if riders are stopped or moving slowly.

There’s another aspect to it when I occasionally ride my road bike. I’m rarely carrying any spare spares to be able to offer much help, which is especially the case if you’re riding a mtb. I’m not going to give you my only co2 cartridge or tube in case I need it. You can have a patch. Really you should have been prepared though and have a phone anyway, so you can wait to be picked up if necessary. I have helped people in other ways though, such as leading them back to somewhere they know, or helping them use tools, or making a call for them.

It’s funny this, this topic pops up after every great sunny weekend and without fail a thread starts when we’ve just been out and enjoyed the ride.
To be fair to Roadies (I am one, committed to it too) we are often astonished at what a snub we get from Stormtroopers and DirtyBoys on filing cabinates too, so its just the same the other ways around.

If you enjoyed your rideout and was polite and said Hi, it’s all you can do, why bother trying to influence someone else whose not that bothered about You? Just because you ride a bike doesn’t make you “mates”.

I don’t spoil my ride or get dissapointed when someone I say Hi to snubs me, ferkem’ 😀

Wot bikebouy said.
I was even polite, cheerful & friendly with the guy who spent a couple of miles on my back wheel on Sunday after catching up with him.
Taxi, me 🙂

A lot of old school cyclists, whether roadie or not, don’t actually enjoy cycling.
They enjoy hurting themselves, being in a persecuted, misunderstood minority, moaning & hating newcomers.

I think it’s got a lot friendlier out and about this year.
Even getting hellos and waves when riding mtb to work

I blame strava. I think people on the road are on the limit that they can’t get out of the Aero dynamic position to look up to say hello and/or they are blowing so much that they can’t speak. When you are in the zone chasing Koms and all that.

As mtb is all about the downhill they have time to chat and say hello and smile.

sour faced roadies

It’s all the fault of their hard narrow saddles and their high cadence.

If I was doing that to my ghoolies, I wouldn’t be smiling either… 🙂

I don’t care whether people say hello or not, it doesn’t bother me either way unless it’s remote enough to be awkward not to do so.

For me it’s about whether someone might need help,

This.
May have posted this before, but you can’t get a more friendly waving hello bunch than German motorbikers.. Until that is you discover that you don’t have the 10mm spanner you need in the middle of the Alps. At which point some of them nearly crashed over the Armco in an attempt not to make eye contact. Waving hello costs nothing….it also means nothing, so I don’t ever get wound up by the lack of it.

According to the N+1 rule very few of the roadies you meet will be “roadies” they’ll have a trail MTB and commuter too… they may have a XC, DH, tourer, fixie, folder and recumbent and a massive debt too? 😉

So how to pigeonhole?

Anyway I don’t expect a “hello” from other drivers/pedestrians/runners/whoever… and if I said “hello” to all of them I’d never stop and expect to look like some socially inept over-friendly twit. So it doesn’t bother me if someone doesn’t reply in the seconds of a fly-past when I’m riding.

They’re in the zone. Sunday bun runs don’t win themselves you know.

They’re in the zone. Sunday bun runs don’t win themselves you know.

and cycling being so “fashionable” have you seen the queues in some of the cafe these days! can’t afford to take it easy, someone else will have nabbed all the cake!

Saw three roadies today when whizzing between the woods – two smilers, and one super-sour. The juxta of the Super-sour encounter was as I passed him I bunnied a pothole for lulz – 20m further on was an old timer with no teeth carrying a bucket of muck and as I drew close he stopped, pushed his upturned hand into the air (suggesting I hop again) and shouted yay! So I hopped again and yayd him back. Happy days, sunshine and mostly smiles – some without teeth. And a pint of Purity Mad Goose in the Rose and Crown before the descent home.