Ride to Wave, Wave to Ride

By: Jed Hunt

Drive around in your Corolla waving to other drivers on the road and you will likely get pulled over for guzzling too much of Uncle Chester's Cure-All Cough Syrup. Ride a motorcycle though, and you'll find that waving to strangers is the new black.

Fact: All bikers have an irresistible urge to wave to other bikers, yet laboratories full of crack scientists can't figure out why. It's like trying to unravel the why-glue-doesn't-stick-to-the-inside-of-the-bottle mystery; no one knows.

First, maybe I shouldn't be calling my fellow motorcyclists strangers. We are, after all, brothers in this leather-clad world of ours; allies in a battle for open pavement amid swarms of lane-infringing Town Cars and hulking SUVs piloted by buffet bound retirees and cell phone-wielding soccer moms. We may not greet each other at Grandma's front door for Christmas dinner, but strangers we certainly are not.

Still, I find myself pondering whether or not there is something more to this perpetual cycle of biker-to-biker waving than the unwritten code by which we motorcyclists conduct ourselves; an official decree perhaps, chiseled into a clutch cover somewhere that reads: THOU SHALT ALWAYS WAVE TO THY FELLOW BIKER, UNLESS YOU ARE PASSING A GOLDEN CORRAL WHERE A TOWN CAR IS LIKELY TO PULL OUT AND CREAM YOU, IN WHICH CASE, THOU SHALT KEEP BOTH THY HANDS ON THY HANDLEBARS.

This Holy Grail is probably lost in the basement of a dusty old museum somewhere'next to a box containing Gary Busey's acting career and stacks of Enron stock receipts'but I'm certain it exists. How else would the first bikers have known to wave to one another from atop their coal-powered cruisers?

I also wonder what happens if one fails to acknowledge his comrades along the highway? Do you get a warning letter? Are you cursed to a lifetime of kidney stones? Does an angel lose her wings? This is important because sometimes the cruiser guys don't wave to the sport bike guys, the sport bike guys sometimes fail to wave to the dual-sport guys, and I have no idea where the scooter crowd might fit into all of this.

Since these important questions have plagued bar patrons and mediocre columnists for decades (or at least for several minutes) now, I decided it was high time for some answers. I jumped on my FZ6 and squealed out of the driveway like a smoker on a cigarette run.

"How the hell should I know?" snapped the first hirsute biker I interviewed. "And why are you holding that hairbrush like a microphone?"

"Why, to enhance the interviewing experience of course," I said. "Well, get it out of my face before I shove it up your-"

"Thanks for your time," I said, and I zoomed off to find more experts.

I soon found a slew of bikers dining at a fast food restaurant, which, for legal reasons, we'll call Flarby's. I ordered a roast beef and cheddar sandwich and snuck into a nearby booth to listen in on the bikers. Perhaps their idle conversation would enlighten me in some way.

"That guy over there is trying to listen in on us," I heard one of them say.

I quickly took a hideously large bite of my sandwich hoping to appear disinterested in their conversation. Cheddar cheese and Flarby's Sauce trickled down my chin and the front of my jacket. I hoped the bikers would't notice.

"Now he's taking a hideously large bite of his sandwich to pretend like he isn't paying attention to us," one of the other bikers said.

"And just look at that sauce on his jacket, for crying out loud," said another.

I jammed as many curly fries into my face as would fit and made for the door. The bikers waved sincerely as I rode away.

I waved back.

Published: Dec 3, 2008

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