Miserable road, and inexplicable drivers

[johnridley]

The last 2 miles of my ride are on lightly travelled and not-much-plowed gravel. Wow, that was bad. Today it was covered with about 6 inches of ground-up mucky snow, mashed around by car tires. It's worse than trying to ride a skinny tire bike in sand, because there are ruts that make you unable to really control your direction. The only way to get through it is to try to follow a single car's tracks. Unfortunately the cars can't see, and therefore don't avoid, the horrible pothole trails this road develops; about every foot in rows stretching a hundred feet are little 3 inch deep potholes, it's like washboarding but just a foot wide or so. It is like someone pounding on your bike from underneath with a jackhammer.

And I don't know what's up with drivers; it's like someone spread a rumor that I was riding around armed or something; I was pulling way over when another car was coming from either direction and waiting until they passed, because I couldn't guarantee I'd be able to control my path. Cars would CREEP past me even if I was off the bike and way off the road. At one point there were cars coming from both directions, so I pulled way off in the path a homeowner cleared to his mailbox, so I was well off the road with plenty of room for both cars to go past. BOTH of them sat there for over a minute and refused to move. Eventually the oncoming car proceeded, staying well to the other side of the road, then the overtaking car came, and when he went past me, he swerved WAY over to the far side of the road as well.

I can understand them being cautious around cyclists in the snow, neither the cyclists nor their own cars are really totally under control at any speed, but that seemed way out of proportion to me.

Maybe someone painted "psychotic serial killer" on the back of my jacket, I dunno.

From the looks of the weather, I'm staying the hell home and working from here tomorrow. I'm not driving any kind of vehicle in that weather. Maybe it'll be OK again to get to work again on Friday.

Comments

[traveller42.livejournal.com]

I think it might a variant of stay well away from crazy people.

From their POV, who else would be riding is this weather?

[mbcrui.livejournal.com]

Maybe someone painted "psychotic serial killer" on the back of my jacket, I dunno.

You're riding a bike in the snow. That's pretty psychotic. :)

Have a good holiday.

[forestweather.livejournal.com]

I had to creep home in my car because the roads had just the right mixture of almostslush to make the vehicle swerve entirely on its own, back & forth. So their giving you lots of room was probably not related to you personally at all, just them being ultra-careful in treacherous conditions. Aw, but maybe you like thinking they are weirded out by the crazy snow-biker?

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Honestly, with the slushcrap we've been having on the roads here lately, I'm semi-seriously thinking about building a set of chains for my bike wheels.

[jennlk]

The mail guy was talking about that yesterday -- he was saying that it's like quicksand out there, and he never knew which way the truck was going to go. In these conditions, my usual 'farewell' to delivery folk is "stay out of the ditch!"....