Here's What It Means When A Biker Points Down With 2 Fingers

We all remember learning about bicycle hand signals as kids, right — or motorcycles or other non-car/truck vehicles? Sticking your arm out to the left means, "I'm turning left." A left arm bent at the elbow with a fist up means, "I'm turning right." A left arm bent at the elbow with a fist down means, "I'm stopping." Putting your thumb on your forehead and waggling your fingers around means, "Caution: chicken crossing ahead." What, what are you talking about? That's not a real gesture. Stop it.

Anyway, cyclists of the motor and non-motor variety use a lot more gestures beyond the turn left, turn right, and stop basics. While there's no telling if such gestures are universally used by all bikers everywhere — and remembering that gestures in one country or even region of a country may differ — we can at least speak about commonly followed generalities. "Follow me" is a universal-enough gesture, and looks like waving someone towards you. Much to the dismay of left-handed people everywhere, this is also done with the left hand. A finger pointed in your direction and then pointed forward means, "You lead."  

Then we come to a truly universal gesture like two fingers made into a V. Provided you're not in England and don't flash someone this gesture with your palm facing in (a variation on the middle finger), the two V fingers means one, common thing on and off the road: peace. It's a general greeting of courtesy. Sometimes bikers keep their fingers closed, but the meaning is the same.

No matter that the V sign is so widespread nowadays, it doesn't have a super long history. Dating back to World War II, the gesture originated with Belgian politician and broadcaster Victor de Laveleye, who started giving people the V as a way to connect Nazi resistance across languages, including French, Flemish, and English. Originally meaning "victory," as in victory over Axis powers, the gesture got co-opted by anti-Vietnam War protestors during the 1960s to mean "peace." From there, bikers must have started using it on the road, same as everyone else using it off the road. Simple as that. As Riderzplanet says, riders use it as shorthand for, "Hello! Keep the rubber side down, keep both wheels on the ground," i.e., be safe and happy trails. 

As for why the V gets pointed down, that's a little more complicated, but it ought to make sense. The full list of biker hand gestures is pretty extensive, and a bit confusing on first look. There's a lot of pointing up, pointing down, pointing behind, flapping the arms around, and lots of other stuff with meanings like, "I need to take a break," "Hazard on the right side," "Slow down," etc. We can only assume that keeping the fingers down, rather than raising them, is a way to avoid alarming people and catching their attention too assertively. Then again, some bikers do the typical, pointed-up sign (pictured above), so rules aren't universal. Like a motorcycle itself, you've just got to roll with it.  

There's another version of the two-fingered biker greeting tale, one that might explain why some bikers keep their two fingers together, rather than spread them into a V. If this version of the story is true, then a biker V is just a less precise version of the proper gesture, which plants the first two fingers firmly together. GS Motorcycles explains that this version of the tale dates back to 1904 and two bikers whose last names people utter every time they say "Harley-Davidson."

So yes, Harley-Davidson isn't just the name of one of Earth's most well-known motorcycle companies. As this version of the two-fingered biker hello tale goes, William Harley and Arthur Davidson were passing each other on the road one day, each on a motorcycle. They sort of spontaneously made up their downward-pointing, two-fingered gesture in greeting — a wave, strictly speaking — and the rest is history. 

Yet another, more realistic-sounding origin story dates the biker wave to post-World War II U.S. when the motorcycle industry saw a boom of veterans take to the streets. The two-fingered hello emerged during this time as a shared greeting along with biker subculture on a whole. And yes, it's at least true that the late 1940s saw biker subculture come to the attention of the wider U.S. public. In 1947 a group of 4,000 bikers convened in Hollister, California, and freaked people out enough to cause "national alarm," as the University of North Carolina says.  

Even though lots of bikers know and do the two-fingered biker wave, we already mentioned that such hand gestures aren't completely universal. But if a biker waves to say, "Hello, peace, and happy trails," does the lack of a wave mean the opposite? We don't want to read too much into things, especially because motorcyclists ought to be focusing on the road and not dying while riding a motorcycle. This is especially true in inclement weather where it'd be dangerous to take a hand off the handlebars. But given that some biker gangs like Hell's Angels have legit reputations for unseemly behavior (warranted or not), the question begs: Does the lack of a wave imply ill intent?

In short, no: GS Motorcycles tells us that folks shouldn't take the lack of a wave in the worst way possible. There's no need to throw a fit, freak out, wonder if the person is going to swing around and chase you with a baseball bat, etc. There are loads of suboptimal road conditions that make it a bad idea to do anything but focus on riding. You might be in the middle of a turn, or in the middle of traffic, going at really high speeds, riding in snow or rain like we mentioned, driving through a narrow space or over a tight bridge, driving at night or in places where visibility is generally bad, and so forth. In those cases, bikers might opt for a subtle nod or some other common sense gesture to say hello, if at all.