- This topic has 30 replies, 14 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 10 months ago by Speedy Rodriguez.
The Wave
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June 25, 2009 at 7:01 pm #20200briderdtParticipant
Why the elitist attitude?
June 25, 2009 at 7:07 pm #20201ranetteParticipantMy guess is there’s at least a little sarcasm in bigguy’s post.
June 25, 2009 at 7:47 pm #20204bigguybbrParticipantRainette is a clever one as usual…
For the record, It’s not the same risk when your displacement is so low that you aren’t required to be trained and licensed. I really wasn’t talking about the large 400-600cc touring models.
And is it elitist??? I don’t think so. Did you walk through the halls, back in school, between classes just waving furiously at everyone that passed? I mean they are in school just like you, why the elitist attitude? What if you saw someone, and they were wearing an AC DC t-shirt just like you? Then you would be more likely to say something wouldn’t you, like if you thought Bon Scott was better than Brian Johnson. Why? Because you share a specific passion…
I’m glad you are still so full of wonder that you want to feel the universal acceptance of eveything 2 wheeled, but don’t be suprised, offended, hurt or betrayed when some people don’t.
The deal with scooters for me, I just don’t feel like they are doing what I’m doing. Sure they are similar, but then again so are football and rugby, and most people’s passions for them vary wildly. I personally feel the scooter doesn’t demand the same dedication that taking up the motorcycle does, and in that way I don’t have particularly strong feelings for them one way or another. They are just another face in the crowd.
So the reason I’m waving as a way to convey a sence of camaraderie in a common passion, which while I have a leg thrown over my bike, I don’t feel I share with anyone other than motorcyclists.
June 25, 2009 at 8:18 pm #20206eonParticipantYou are not being elitist but you tell us how scooters are inferior?
You are not being elitist but you get to define who is worthy of your wave?June 25, 2009 at 8:35 pm #20209davidmdahlParticipantThe interesting thing about basing respect and membership in one’s own “wave club” on the size or type of motorcycle, is that it ignores the experience of the other rider. The scooter rider may have thousands of miles in all sorts of weather. The cruiser or sport bike rider may have dozens of miles in sunshine on a pristine bike.
I find that watching out for other motorcycles helps me keep my head in the ride and helps my general attitude.
Best wishes,
David
June 25, 2009 at 8:58 pm #20210ranetteParticipantMost states treat anything over 50cc as a motorcycle requiring a full motorcycle license. As for motorcycles and scooters not being the same, of course I agree. However they are probably more similar than you might feel. Most scooter riders are passionate and dedicated much in the same way as motorcycle riders. If you doubt that I can give you a list of message boards populated by people who live and breathe scooters.
Although I did see the sarcasm in your post and realize you’re just having fun with this I also read that you don’t take scooters “seriously” not the best word but all I could come up with. My Buddy 150 has just a bit less horsepower than a Rebel while a Vespa 250 GTV actually has more hp than a V Star 250 and nearly as much as a Ninja 250. I can’t imagine that your dismissal of scooters has to to with the step through design or the huge amount of storage, it must be due to lack of horsepower. Does your choosing an FZ6R or me a Ducati GT1000 make us more dedicated or passionate than someone starting on a Ninja 250? Do you have the cyberwalnuts to come out and make a statement like that on this site? I wouldn’t necessarily agree but I would have to admire you for it.
Is it a transmission thing? Would you wave to a guy on an Aprillia Mana 850? Ok, I could forgive not waving at a Honda DNS-01 that’s just an odd vehicle.
Again, just having fun with something that is anything but life or death. I love my scooter for its practicality, riding the Duc around my small town loaded down with groceries and errand fodder just wouldn’t work and in my Ford Flex it’s just no damn fun. I also love it because it will always be my first, the first bike that I came around a big sweeper at about 50 mph on, pushed on the bars and felt the rush of really leaning a bike. Granted the Ducati is what I take out when I’m looking for fun and it has taken another level of dedication to become proficient on it. However scooters and motorcycles, and scooterists and motorcyclists, while not exactly the same, certainly have more similarities than differences. So come on bigguy, for me, a fellow New Englander(at least for the past 10 years), next time you see a Vespa coming at you toss out your left hand, it won’t hurt, I promise.
June 25, 2009 at 9:04 pm #20211SafetyFirstParticipantI don’t dislike scooters, but if you wanted to get me on something 50cc, it’d have to be one of these:
June 26, 2009 at 12:29 am #20224MunchParticipantHmm…..funny…. I don’t wave to scooters….. only one reason…. while I was growing up in my area they are known to be “A drunk mans harley” and the way I see it , how fair and caring is it for me to wave at him and add more challenge to his/her already impaired mind by initiating a technique that would require a controlling mechanism be removed ever so briefly from the controls to wave back possibly inducing a spill, swerve, unscheduled get off?
I kid… a little. If they wave .I wave. They don’t….I don’t. I did however have fun with one the other day. It started off as a genuine thought of being friendly. He was hauling it done the road (as best as the scooter could anyways) saw me and hugged the line on the side. I looked at the speedo and thought ” you know , it’s 45 mph through here anyway, I’ll piggy back him for a while …give him a little more visibility to the traffic”
Well I guess the ol’ boy wasn’t a mind reader. He kept checking his mirrors every 10 seconds he had to spare. First side road and he immediately dove off on it. Now watching my mirrors I saw him bang a U turn and get back going in the same direction we were headed. I had to laugh.
OH yea… another funny little detail, he had a bright yellow shirt with a big black palm print on the back with a message in it and I quote :
“See ya later Hater”….. had to laugh at that one to…..not nice of him to pick on the lawn mowers he was passing ( I gest)June 26, 2009 at 3:01 am #20230bigguybbrParticipantThe whole scoot-wave thing is just never going to happen with me. At least not for the little ones.
But please, don’t over generalize saying I’m poking fun at smaller displacement real motorcycles (which I never did), I was saying I don’t take the little 49cc scoots seriously. The first serious scooters I ever saw was when I was up in Lake George. Big crazy touring mothers, with drivers who actually belong on the road and have a motorcycle endorsement.
Around these parts the only scooters you see are the craigs list special $500 49cc chinese imports (like Rocketa aka Ghetto-Rockets as we call them around here), and the people riding them aren’t out there with a rider mentality, they are treating them like the toys that they are.
I remember one day riding down the road and I accidentally low waved a fruit-scoot. I immediatly wished I had a flux capacitor, so i could jump on the highway, get upto 88mph, and go back in time to slap myself for the indiscresion.
I absolutly know I’m not the only one out there not waving. We have had other posts in the past about the same subject. I just happen to be the only honest one talking up about it on here (other than Munch, but he’ll wave if waved to).
Eon –
You are not being elitist but you tell us how scooters are inferior?
I never said that but if you read into it then sure. They are. No doubt about it. They are built with the driving purpose of ease of use. Find any scooter you want, and put it against any equivalently priced bike and it will be out performed. It’s the truth.
You are not being elitist but you get to define who is worthy of your wave?
I don’t remember the “ride around and wave to everything that has a wheel” drill durring the training course. How many points did I lose off my riding exam for not waving? I hope I don’t get pulled over and given a ticket for failing to wave. What whats this… a news flash… Stalin is not in power you say? I live in America? It’s a FREE country you say? I can wave and not wave as I please!?!?!?!Rane – In 10 years, you haven’t learned not to tell a New Englander to be friendly? Stubborness is part of our yankee charm! (ugh I just said yankee, the Sox fan in me just died a little) And yes I know there are scooter forums out there with very devoted fans, and scooter enthusiasts world wide. There are a lot of people who really love them. And at $6,899.00 for a Vespa 250 GTV (same as I payed for my FZ6R or for a brand new Gladius) you would have to be nuts or incredibly dedicated to own one, and I would really really hope it out perfomed a $3790.00 V-Star 250.
June 26, 2009 at 3:47 am #20234ranetteParticipant“the Sox fan in me just died a little” Well at least this thread has accomplished a little bit. Personally a full exorcism performed by Father Dent assisted by Father Boone would be in order, but I digress, and sadly I don’t have much to brag about since ’03. Hopefully the natural order of the world, the way it existed from 1918 until 2004 will soon be restored.
Back to why we’re here, absolutely scooters are much more expensive for the same amount of performance. However, keep in mind that when you quote the price of Vespas you are talking about the prestige brand and while you certainly got far more performance for your $6K+ my guess is that the Vespa might hold its resale value better than almost any motorcycle. But that’s a whole different argument. Bottom line is I make it a point to wave to everyone on a motorcycle or scooter, makes me feel good. Don’t know why, but it does. If it doesn’t for you, keep your hand on the clutch. As you said it is a free country*
Sorry about asking you to be friendly, I have found that it does go against the credo of many a New Englander, and as I’m sure you know I’ll never be one as I wasn’t born here(not to mention the Yankee logo my dad had tatooed on my ass when I was an infant.) I guess you can take the boy out of NY but you can’t take NY out of the boy…and it may surprise some of you out there scattered throughout the continent but NYers are some of the friendliest people you’ll ever meet, just ask us, we’ll tell you.
*Ok, this has no place on a motorcycle board but as soon as I typed those words I remembered a night about 10 years when those words were thrown at me leaving me speechless, which is pretty tough to do. Sitting in a bar in NY. A local character walks in, looked like the Chief in that old “don’t pollute” commercial complete with a full head dress. There’s one seat left at the bar, against the wall, my wife and I on the stools next to it. The guy asks me “do you mind if I sit there” I replied with those exact words “go ahead, it’s a free country.” He replied, without missing a beat, “Yes it’s a free country because your people stole it from my people.” I just sat there with my mouth open, my wife said something along the lines of “Why didn’t you just say ‘go right ahead” I can never type or say those words again without thinking about that night.
June 26, 2009 at 8:46 am #20243ronkoreParticipant’round here, it’s pretty much fellow sportbike riders who wave, and of all the cruisers I’ve seen I think only one has waved. I’ll return a wave if I’m not busy with the clutch or in a traffic situation that requires all my attention. I’ll try and nod in that case. I never wave on the freeway, I’m too busy concentrating on where I’m going and what the cars around me are doing. I’ve had some fellow oncoming riders wave at me, but I can’t return the favor.
I’ve been in one situation so far where I’ve been able to warn of cop ahead, and the two riders were grateful and gave the thumbs up.
June 26, 2009 at 3:53 pm #20257zeppelinfromledParticipantTo warn about cops, did you tap the top of your helmet?
June 26, 2009 at 3:57 pm #20260bigguybbrParticipantHa ha the sox fever is never going away either.
I may have been born up in Rochester NY, but growing up there was only one team you cheered for in my family.
The only bad part about the Sox at all for me is my granfather, who was one of the biggest Sox fans I have ever known given that his father played minor leagues for the Sox (Portland Sea Dogs or whatever they were back then in Maine), was born in 1926 and died in 2003, just a year before the Sox finally got back on the winning track.
June 26, 2009 at 4:32 pm #20262ranetteParticipantFunniest thing I’ve ever heard on a sports talk show. A few years prior to ’04 the Sox seemed about to blow a playoff series to the A’s. Guy calls in, the heaviest Boston accent you can imagine, says to the host “The Sox killed my father and now they’re coming after me.”
June 26, 2009 at 4:38 pm #20264bigguybbrParticipantHA HA HA HA HA
Oh man thats funny.
Thanks! That made my day.
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