The Motorcyclist Wave
I’ve taken my bike a couple of times out Sunrise Drive to Fay Bainbridge State Park. It’s a pretty stretch of straight road, two lanes over low, gently rolling hills. It’s not heavily traveled and a good place for me to practice upshifting, downshifting, and braking when there is nobody behind me. The first time I was coming back a motorcyclist was coming in the other direction and held his hand out, down just below his handlebars. It looked like some kind of signal to me. I wasn’t sure if it was a motorcyclist’s wave or if he was signaling that I was doing something wrong, my blinkers were on, or something.
Then today I was headed north and a motorcyclist was coming in the opposite direction. I got the same signal and realized it was some special wave between people on motorcycles, so I returned the wave which I would call the down-low or DL wave because the left hand is held out at about the same height as the handlebars or lower. (This is not to be confused with what black men mean when they talk about being on the DL or the down-low.)
I googled “motorcyclists wave to each other” and found this blog post which explains it all. I’m not going to be such a snob about it though. Hey, I almost bought a scooter.
I don’t think it would be a good idea in traffic but when it’s just me and the other person… cool.
Today I had a brief but nice ride. The weather was warm, there wasn’t much traffic and executed my turns with more confidence. I got up to 40 mph at least once for a short time.
I’m having trouble downshifting though. The trasmission on my new Ninja 250R seems to get stuck around fourth or third gear and even with the clutch lever pulled in, I can’t always make it shift down. Either I’m doing something wrong or maybe the transmission is just stiff since it’s new. Eventually I was able to get back down to first each time, however, or I wouldn’t be sitting here typing this right now, I’d still be stuck on the road somewhere.
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