Doing the wave

Now in my fourth year of three-season bicycle commuting, I’ve gotten to where I can usually tell when another Spokane cyclist is not going to return a friendly wave.

So I have pretty much abandoned the practice of acknowledging bike riders decked out in such a way as to make one suspect that they take themselves pretty seriously.  Which is sort of too bad. Because, in a way, this makes me guilty of the same sort of stereotyping that bike-hating drivers embrace.

You know, “They’re all alike.”

And the fact is, I happen to know that some of those riders wearing the snug bike-racing clothes are actually OK guys. So maybe I need to rethink my policy.

I will continue, however, to not wave at the helmetless smokers riding bikes so ridiculously small that they look like they are part of a chimp act on “Ed Sullivan.”