As regular readers of this fine publication will know my motorbike was stolen about 6 weeks ago. Initially I got rather excited at the prospect of upgrading to the big 1 ltr bike and cursing around town on my rear wheel (yes the idea still excites me and yes I can be a bit of a rev head when I’m not fighting for the environment).

With an absence of a motorbike I got my pushy serviced and started cycling around the place. Now days I’m quite the cycling enthusiast. I’ve been regularly riding to my parents house (a decent ride) and rode out to Williamstown (also a decent ride) on the weekend with a couple of mates. In fact last night, despite a bit of rain, I went for a 40 min ride just for the sake of fitness. I’m also a little excited that others are doing the same.

So as a fan of all things two wheeled it’s interesting to note the cultural differences between the two. For some reason I expect there to be cultural similarities but really there isn’t any.

Perhaps the biggest common feature is that both groups are arrogant and probably rightly so. The roadcraft of most motorcyclists is significantly better than most car users. Motorcyclists have a much deeper understanding of the road as they need it to stay alive. They are also generally quite comfortable with the idea that they are a bad ass. I think cyclists are similar in terms of their roadcraft but are lower on the road food chain leaving these skills irrelevant.

It’s much harder to pin point the source of arrogance of the cyclist as they are a much less homogenous group. There’s the hippy, is powered by the fact that riding that bike is helping every car that goes past them (this is also the source of resentment). There’s the serious cyclist who is powered by their own sense of self satisfaction that they are really really fit and have neat looking leg muscles and a $10,000 bike. And then there are those who just use a bike because it’s their only means of transport what with the price of petrol these days – these people generally have no pride and really aren’t in a hurry to get anywhere anyway.

Now the most apparent difference between the two is the level of solidarity. If you pull up at the lights on a motorbike, next to another motorbike you get ‘the nod’. Sometimes you have a bit of a chat. Sometime you drag each other off at every set of lights as you go along and pull up laughing about it at the next set of red lights ready to do it again. I remember pulling up to a bloke in his full colours (which can be quite intimidating, if memory serves me correctly he was a Gipsy Joker) and just having a ball together as we flew at high speed through the traffic. I must add my little 600cc Honda sport bike killed his huge 1500cc Harley! This just doesn’t happen on a push bike. Off the road there is sometimes a sense of solidarity but on the road there really is none. Riding home from my parents the other day I nearly fell off my bike when I pulled up at the lights next to a cyclist and he actually said hi.

So I miss my solidarity and being a bad ass. I’ll get my fix down at Philip Island in October.

Until then I’ll keep peddling until I cack and just go out an buy a motorbike.