Markup View

Author: lakawak

Jan 3rd 2012 at 3:04:02 AM

yes...George McFly does it as well. And I am not sure, but I think that was one of the many ways The 40 Year Old Virgin showed his nerdidity. (along with actually signalling properly) Though he may have done it with reason, unlike many who ring it as soon as they get on the bike for no reason whatsoever. But this is the movie that mocks the action of an adult riding a bike pretty directly at least twice in the movie. (First Seth Rogan and then Kat Dennings.)

Doc does it as well in BackToTheFuture Part 2 when he is pulling into Biff's driveway to free Marty from the garage. (Though Marty is already in the back seat of Biff's car.)

So yes..it is definitely played off as nerdy pretty often. (I say this as someone who rides 200  miles a week in the summer and over 3500 miles a year.) Too nerdy to drive a car...that type a thing.

Daniel has a bike, and is mocked for it, but no bell in TheKarateKid. So perhaps the trope is just having a bike often makes you the social outcast.

The main character in 21 rides a bike when he is still just a math nerd but if I recall, you don't see him ride it once he joins the card counting team. This perhaps has more to do with a lack of money, but movies can portray poor Bostonians without using bikes by having them ride the subway like GoodWillHunting.

There there was You Me and Dupree where it started off being nerdy, but then Owen Wilson sort of turned it into non-nerdy. (I don't think he had a bell though.) Jan Brady was portrayed as nerdy for riding it to school in the original Brady Bunch Movie, but it was more for the way she was riding than riding itself since she was a kid.

And the main character in the indie movie Teeth is seen riding a bike. Probably to hammer home the whole ultra-religious, abstinence nerd aspect of her character.

But definitely most of the time when the character is of legal driving age, if they are riding a bike it is to show that they are in some way a social outcast. Especially if they enjoy it.