the biking social class

until a week ago i knew nothing about bike tech and now i find myself asking ‘mtb qr skewer / stunt pegs compatability?’ many / most of the posts in the  road.cc forum are tech related in an obscure way which everyday folk wd find impossible to understand.  and yet many of these people will ride bikes. so is there a bike hierarchy in which geek cyclists exist separately from the majority of regular cyclists and how does that manifest itself for each group? the separation of groups, as well as being based on levels of involvement and knowledge, wd also seem to be based on income. biking can be an expensive, socially exclusive business. £1300 wheel set anyone? while i’m on the road for £45.

in a related way you cd also surmise that there is a kind of class war going on between many drivers and bikers. some drivers seem to be just plain hostile to cyclists even when theyre not on the road like a kind of 2 wheel racism. young to middle aged chavs wd seem to be the main culprits. it doesnt seem to me to be just about drivers thinking cyclists badly affect traffic it’s also about their perceptioons of people who cycle and of themselves. if theyre a white van man a cabbie a truck driver or a twenty something chav who loves his motor they will be aggressive petrol heads who dislike cyclists for their perceived wimpy middleclass green agenda. it’s class war.