People are Strange

Being the G20 weekend in Brisbane, this morning I decided to opt for the moto over the pushie

and headed for Mt Glorious.  The streets were nice and quiet due to the mass exodus to the Gold and Sunshine coasts, and it was a perfect morning for a ride on two wheels, with plenty of both motorbikes and pushies out on the mountain.

I decided to pull in at the cafe in Mount Glorious village for a coffee, and ended up sharing a table with an older guy wearing a Triumph t-shirt.  He was friendly and we had a good chat about all sorts of stuff, sharing a common understanding of motorbikes, but all sorts of topics came up.  He chatted about his retirement, road trips he had done, his family, the G20; it was a very easy and enjoyable conversation.

I mentioned that I had noticed since my return to motorbikes that there didn't seem to be too many younger riders in the 20's these days.  Triumph t-shirt agreed, and started talking about how he had noticed that some of the camaraderie that he loved about motorcycling had reduced, with less riders inclined to give 'the nod' or 'the wave' as they rode past.  His theory was that there had been a reduction in the passing on of knowledge, which included the etiquette.  I thought this interesting, and made some comparisons in my own head to cycling.  I've heard plenty of talk over the last few years about the explosion in popularity of cycling, but often without the equivalent knowledge passed from senior to novice riders.  I think there is some sense to this, and suspect that it is part of the much broader debate into cycling on our roads.  Knowledge of how to ride on a shared road is very important, both from a safety point of view and respectfulness for other road users.  This knowledge will come from two main sources, the riders own experiences gained over time, and the passing of knowledge from more experienced riders.

This was all ticking away in the back of my head as Triumph t-shirt shared his thoughts, and at

this point I thought I would try a little experiment.  I mentioned to him that I was also a cyclist, and noticed similarities between the two groups of road users.  The moment I said the word "cyclist" I could immediately see his facial expression change.  I may as well have said I was an Islamic State terrorist.

There wasn't much more conversation after that, and he left me to finish my coffee alone soon after.  

It was an interesting experiment.  I find that people love to compartmentalise other people into boxes with labels, I guess it is how are brains are wired and helps understand the world around us.  However I have found that our brains are very easily challenged when those labels overlap, eg. "are you an Australian or a Muslim?", you can't be both!  In this instance I was both a cyclist and a motorcyclist, and when this was realised I had quickly gone from a guy Triumph t-shirt could have an easy chat with, to something else that wasn't so comfortable.

Hopefully overall when he left the table the outcome was a positive one, and perhaps he will be less likely to instinctually negatively label the next cyclist he comes across.

We are all people, but we sure are a strange bunch.