Let me start with a little story. It’s a true one, it happened just last week and it happened to me.

I was winding my way home on my road bike, just cruising along through the last 10 miles or so of a fifty mile odd loop through some of my favorite local country lanes. I wasnt  pushing it but certainly wasnt dawdling along either, and was having one of those rare and to be cherished days when the bike and I were feeling pretty good together. It was almost middle-aged man and machine in something approaching harmony.

Coming around a corner about half way down a gentle descent I came across one of those quintessentially English minor road landmarks, a set of temporary traffic lights and a haphazard row of traffic cones blocking half of the road, apparently for no good reason discernible to the naked eye and of course they were set firmly on ‘red’.

As I stood there astride my noble steed waiting for the lights to change I heard the unmistakable sounds of a group of fellow two-wheeled warriors coming down the lane behind me, and seconds later a group of about six fellow MAMIL’s stopped around me in a cacophony of unclipping and carbon rim / brake pad squealing.

My cheerful ‘Morn’in Lads’ went unanswered. Silence reigned over the lane. I could feel six pairs of eyes hidden behind six pairs of mirrored riding shades roving over me while their owners assessed if I was worthy of notice, or even a cursory reply. The next few seconds seemed to drag on an inordinately long time. The silence stretched out. I could hear the birds chirping in the hedgerows, and you could have heard a badger fart from two fields away. One of my new-found riding companions sighed impatiently at the delay and the ‘beep’ from his Garmin as he paused his ride seemed to hang in the air.

Vaguely embarrassed by their lack of response, (was it me, did I have an undetected bogey hanging from my septum, had I split my bib-shorts at the back and not noticed?) I concentrated on my front tyre and tried to project an air of nonchalance and unconcern at their rudeness.

The lights changed and we all moved off again and coasting down the hill I let the group flow round me as we hit the bottom of the descent and began what I knew was a sharp nasty little climb about a mile in length. Sod them I thought, if they wont even say hello they can bugger off down the road. As the group formed up just in front of me as the road began to tilt upwards it gave me a chance to return their scrutiny without being observed in return. They were immaculate bunch down to a coordinated riding sock. Not a bike worth a penny less than £3,000 resided beneath their Italian tailored chamois. These were not guys that had spent time perusing the clearance section of the Chain Reaction Cycles website in search of a bargain. I was staring at a sea of Rapha Gillets and Di2 Dura Ace adorned carbon fibre riding stylishly away from me.

It did cause a momentary pang of self assessment as I considered how my own appearance and kit would have been transmitted through those mirrorred Oakleys. Yes, I might have scored minor points for rocking a Ti frame, (a bit retro, but a serious riders tool surely?) but this would have been instantly negated by my steeds triple chainset and deficiency of sprockets at the rear. (Only 9speed? so not even last year) I’m sure I also lost points because it was painfully obvious that cleaning my bike is most definitely not one of my life priorities.

As for my chosen riding apparel, well there was a distinct lack of designer labels and coordination had clearly not been uppermost in my mind when making my selections. In fact whatever is closest to the top of the washing pile is normally the prime driver in whatever I’m usually found to be wearing both on and off the bike 🙂 , but the fact that my  jersey had the logo of one of my favourite breweries on it and my socks had obviously come free with a well know magazine shouldn’t have been a reason for scorn surely?

So why so rude? ok i wasn’t part of their group, and didn’t know them from Adam, but surely a ‘hello’ costs nothing, but unfortunately such rudeness and disdain is not unusual amongst a certain breed of cyclist these days. I will always try to acknowledge a fellow cyclist when I encounter one out riding. It really makes no difference if you’re on a forty-year old Dawes Galaxy and wearing Knee Sock, or astride a Pinarello Dogma in full Team Sky kit, you’ll get at lest a nod of the head and if there’s breath in my body to spare a ‘hello’ or ‘good morning’.

I reckon about 60% of riders I see reply in kind. The other 40% are almost exclusively male, often in groups and usually wearing a Cycling Club kit of some description. I’ve been trying to get the riders of one of my local clubs to say hello back for years and I’ve never managed more than a grudging nod. When you pass them out on the road they fly past in the opposite direction gazes locked like lasers straight ahead incase they should make accidental eye contact with the pleb on the other side of the road. Why? I really don’t get it at all. Is there a secret initiation ceremony when they join the club in which they are brain washed into ignoring anybody not in a club jersey? or does some grizzled club veteran take them quietly aside and tell them politeness is just not the done thing when wearing the club colours?

And these groups of middle-aged men like the guys I encountered last week, why do they do it? From observing the way a couple of them rode and the fit of their bikes I’d hazard a guess a couple of them were fairly new to the sport. Did they assume that the ability to buy a carbon fibre super bike automatically endowed them with superior status to a less  financially well endowed cyclist? or was how they were behaving on their bikes simply an extension of how they behaved in other ares of their lives? I have no idea. I just think it’s a shame.

In these days when every other road user seems to be focusing their ire on cyclists it would make sense for all of the cycling community to both stick together and to try to project a positive vibe and image. Being rude and disparaging to each other isn’t going to help.