Every tribe has its own language, and motorcycle riders have been building theirs for a long time. Some of it is technical. Some of it is teasing. A lot of it is the kind of thing you only learn by standing around a gas pump with people who've been riding longer than you have.
Here's a field guide to the motorcycle slang that longtime riders know by heart — with the definitions, and the way it actually gets used in a parking lot. Nobody agrees on where most of these words started, so we'll stick to what they mean.
Squid
What it means: A rider, usually a new one, who rides fast, rides showy and wears very little protective gear. T-shirt, shorts, sneakers, a fast bike and no idea how to stop it.
How it gets used: Mostly as gentle teasing. Plenty of riders with gray in the beard will admit, if you buy the coffee, that they were a squid once too. The word says less about age than about judgment, and judgment usually shows up with mileage.
A fair warning: calling the young guy at the pump a squid is a lot funnier in your head than out loud. The riding world is small, and everybody started somewhere.
ATGATT
What it means: "All The Gear, All The Time." Helmet, jacket, gloves, pants and boots, on every ride, no matter how short or how hot.
How it gets used: As a creed, a reminder and sometimes a friendly argument. Riders who are ATGATT will tell you so. Riders who aren't will tell you it's only a mile to the store. Both sides have been having that conversation for decades, and they'll be having it at the next breakfast stop too.
Chicken strips
What it means: The unworn strip along the outer edges of a motorcycle tire. When a rider doesn't lean the bike far into corners, the edges of the tire never touch the road, and they stay looking new.
How it gets used: As a tease, almost always. Someone glances at your rear tire, sees an inch of untouched rubber on each side and says nothing — loudly. The best response a longtime rider has is a dry one: the tread is fine, thanks, and the strips are there because getting home is the whole plan.
Wide chicken strips on a cruiser aren't really a failing. Different bikes, different roads, different ideas of a good Saturday.
The motorcycle wave
What it means: The low wave riders give each other when they pass on the road. Usually the left hand comes off the bars and two fingers point down toward the pavement. Some riders give a nod instead if the hand is busy.
How it gets used: It's a greeting between strangers who have at least one thing in common. Riders argue about who waves to whom, whether scooters count and what it means when nobody waves back. Most longtime riders end up waving at just about everyone on two or three wheels. It costs nothing, and the road is lonely enough.
False neutral
What it means: When the gearbox feels like it's in neutral but is actually stuck between gears. The rider lets out the clutch, twists the throttle, and the engine revs while the bike goes nowhere.
How it gets used: Usually at a stoplight, in front of a full line of cars, with someone watching. Every rider has a false neutral story. The longtime ones tell theirs with a straight face.
Contact patch
What it means: The small area of each tire actually touching the road at any moment. On a motorcycle, it's not much bigger than the palm of a hand.
How it gets used: In serious conversations about tires and grip, and in philosophical ones about how much faith a rider puts into a couple of small pieces of rubber. It's one of those terms that makes new riders thoughtful and old riders nod.
Tar snakes
What it means: The lines of shiny tar used to seal cracks in the road. They can get slick, especially on a hot day.
How it gets used: As a groan. "That back road was all tar snakes." Car drivers rarely notice them. Riders notice every single one.
The twisties
What it means: A stretch of road with lots of curves, close together. The good stuff.
How it gets used: As the answer to "where are you riding this weekend?" Every region has its favorite twisties, and every rider has an opinion about which ones are best.
Farkle
What it means: An accessory added to a bike — extra lights, a phone mount, a cup holder, heated grips, a bigger windscreen. The word is a mash-up most riders take to mean something like "functional sparkle."
How it gets used: Affectionately. Some bikes have so many farkles they look like a dashboard on wheels. Longtime riders tend to collect them the way they collect stories, one at a time and each with a reason.
Kickstands up
What it means: The time a group ride leaves. Sometimes written as KSU.
How it gets used: "Breakfast at seven, kickstands up at eight." It's the most important time on the schedule, and the one most often missed by the guy who stopped for gas on the way.
Wind therapy
What it means: The calm a lot of riders feel on a good ride. Out there, a rider has to pay attention, and that attention seems to push the rest of the week out of the way.
How it gets used: As a one-line answer to "why do you still ride?" It's been printed on a lot of shirts already, so we use it sparingly. But most riders know exactly what it means.
Grow old disgracefully
What it means: Not strictly slang, but a phrase you'll hear among riders with a few decades behind them. The idea: getting older is not a reason to start behaving.
How it gets used: As a motto, a toast and an excuse for buying another bike. It sits close to the heart of why Gray Throttle exists.
Why the lingo matters
Slang is how a group recognizes its own. When a rider jokes about his chicken strips, or tells the false neutral story at breakfast, the people laughing hardest are the ones who've lived it. That's the kind of humor our shirts are built on: dry, first-person and written for people who get the joke without needing it explained.
Every line we print sounds like something a rider would say about himself. "My knees are aftermarket. The rest is stock." It's language from the inside, not a joke made at a rider's expense.
If you speak the language, take a look at Still At It. Shopping for someone who does? Start with Gifts for Riders. And if there's a term your riding group uses that we left off this list, email us at support@graythrottle.com. We'd like to hear it.
Read more about who we are on Our Story.