Friday, April 23, 2010

Biking in the Rain (or sprinkle)

I'm not sure why, but drivers are ruder to bikers when it's raining. I had several who sped up to pass faster and make extra noise as they went by me while I was riding home today.

In nice weather, drivers seem nicer.

I've noticed an even stronger correlation between rude driver behavior winter weather. The nearest misses I've had on my bike have all been at temperatures were water is not a liquid (or a scalding gas).

Why is it, I ask, that should be so?

Anyway, I rode my bike to Mount Mercy early enough today that I only got lightly sprinkled on in the morning. In the evening, when I rode home, I got most of the way before it began changing its mind and deciding to quit messing around with mist and switch over to light rain--but I was still pretty dry when I got home.

A bit shaken. I know you drive a truck, Brandon, and don't fall into this category, but once gain, the worst vehicle drivers who seem to want to edge close, pass fast and resent the presence of a bike are young men driving pickups.

Not little, cute, Japanese 4-cylinder pickups, either. Big screw the planet American jobs. The particular one whose driver I would like to meet outside his truck was driving a 4-door super cab red damn-the-planet-I'm-gonna-burn-some-carbon Chevrolet.

Now, I like pickups. Next to a VW Beetle (the ultimate driving machine if it has manual transmission, and although there is a special vibrating visceral sewing-machine sounding cachet to the classic ones, no car fits a fat man better or gives more driving pleasure than a new Beetle) my favorite vehicle was a white Mitsubishi "Dodge" truck we owned in the 80s and early 90s.

But pickup truck drivers? Particularly of over-sided, over-powered, pointlessly big and ugly American trucks?

Jerks, most of them.

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