Motorcyclists are a weird bunch, we would know. By quirky behavior, we mean a bit questionable, and by questionable, we mean questionable to normal people.
It’s okay to be weird, in fact, the motorcycling community encourages that you be a little bit weird—just not too weird. By weird, we mean, weird enough to have a passion for everything on two wheels. In that passion, it’s easy to adopt a few quirky habits here and there. We would know, we’re guilty as heck of some if not all the items on the list.
Wearing a helmet for no reason, or maybe a weird reason
Helmets are safety devices that need to be worn whenever you ride a motorcycle. On a bike they make sense, off it, they kinda get in the way of normal life. If you have a full face, unless you take it off, you can’t really talk normally or eat at all.
The weird thing is that motorcyclists have a tendency to love their lids, so much so that it ends up being like a bit of a thinking cap of sorts. Especially in the case of a full-face lid, it’s like your own little personal bubble that you can take on and off. Sometimes we catch ourselves wearing our helmets if we get a little too nervous or overwhelmed. Other times, if we’ve just purchased a new helmet, we’d wear it around the house to break in the pads—at least, that’s our very “valid” excuse.
Talking to your bike
Some bikers are crazy enough to give their rides a name. Others will pat their motorcycles after an exciting ride. Others, still, will even treat the OR/CR as a birth certificate. The thing is, a few motorcyclists believe that if you treat a bike well, it will do the same for you. Some motorcyclists are religious when it comes to maintenance and service. Others are downright superstitious, choosing to ride when the stars line up or only foregoing a ride if something bad happens.
Motorcyclists, in general, have a close connection with their bikes, so much so that you may say that it has a soul. Whether it is a scooter or a sportbike, giving it a name is totally normal, right?
Looking back at your bike
Picture this, you pull up to the parking lot, park your bike, and then steal a glance at it as you walk away. If you like what you see, that means that you’ve bought the right motorcycle. The feeling is even more intense if it moves you to bring out your phone and take a quick photo, or two, or several. If you love your motorcycle so much, you’ll essentially give it an impromptu photo shoot right on the spot.
It doesn’t matter how big or how small your motorcycle is. If you love it you love it. Avid riders will find the best angles possible and they might even put up an instagram account specifically for their motorcycle shenanigans. From cafe racers, scooters, or fast bikes, there is a rider that loves snapping a pic of where they are or of just the bike. Trust us, we know quite a few people.
What are normal clothes?
If you have a riding buddy that you frequently eat breakfast with, you might be surprised to see that they actually have some real clothes in their wardrobe!. If you’re very serious about safety, and hopefully your friends are too, it might be impossible to catch them in shorts or in slippers, like ever.
Most of us at the office find ourselves gravitating towards dri-fit shirts, riding jeans, and our favorite riding jacket. When fully geared up, you need all the help you can get, and daily riding a big bike is sweaty business.
Tucking in everything
While influencers and fashionistas do it for style points, motorcyclists do it out of necessity. The truth is, most motorcycle-specific jackets are short to accommodate a riding position. Adventure jackets are longer at times, but most standard motorcycle jackets end just under the navel. Most shirts end somewhere past that point, covering part of the crotch area, so it only makes sense to tuck the excess fabric in lest it flaps in the wind.
The same rings true for shoelaces and bag straps. Not only are untied shoelaces dangerous, but long and flappy shoelaces may also catch on to some bits on the bike, and perhaps cause an accident. The same goes for drawstrings, and bag straps. Unless you want those things to flap in the wind and hit your bike, securing them or tucking them into things is the only reasonable option.
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