I’m a biker. Not the annoying kind that scares children or blows up little critters with hand grenades (okay, that was Raising Arizona). And with the weather warming, it has been a joy to get the lady out and cruise into work. Usually the ride is normal and without incident. But lately, an interesting new phenomenon occurs as I growl closer to campus. I find that right around 9^th South I’m immediately engulfed in a swarm of U students on scooters, buzzing along happily, zooming in and out of traffic like drunk bees. My first instinct is to not disturb them with my big black bike the way Marlin Perkins always tiptoed around a pack of hyenas on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Actually, my FIRST instinct is to ram them. Comes from being a boy in a family of bikers. But instead I choose a more mature tack, one that involves passivity and good old-fashioned people watching.

And more often than not, I’m rewarded for my voyeurism. What amuses me most is the absolute gang-like quality these young commuters take. Sure, the helmets don’t have bloodstained skeletons on them (Hello Kitty is the prevalent choice amongst girls while the boys seem to go with flat black and the occasional subversive sticker) and the jackets aren’t leather with eerie initials and images of Satan’s bachelor pad (although I did see one well-meaning lad sporting a pleather vest with a picture of Spock – nothing is more badass than Spock, apparently). But the herd (swarm?) mentality is impossible to deny, and while I felt a tad silly riding alongside these lawnmowers on wheels, feeling all the time that I’m somehow being secretly escorted to the queen bee to be killed in some weird frat ritual, I do so willingly and with no pretense.

There’s a ritual on the road when two bikers pass each other. You may have seen it. Both riders instinctively give each other a simultaneous greeting – two fingers outstretched and pointing down to the road. And while it’s as close as I’ll ever want to get to a secret handshake, it is more significant than a simple greeting or salutation. The signal hearkens back to the beginnings of the culture, from the ancient of days. It’s a sign to “keep two wheels down,” or, “the shiny side up.” It may seem silly, but it has its place and I respect it, enough never to give it up lightly to hotdogs on bullet bikes…or to kids on scooters. But I think, and I may make my father spew on his Harley wife beater if he ever reads this, that if a U scooter gang ever gives me the sign, I may just possibly almost consider returning it.