Pick up's, RV's and other road considerations

As you might imagine i've had a fair amount of thinking time on the road and I would like to share with you some of my ponderings about my fellow road users. Firstly the pick up, that great American institution, they come in all shapes and sizes from the standard European size to the monolithic giants (standard American ones). More importantly i've identified four different types of driver: Gents, Lads, Shitheads and Rednecks. The gents are great: they see you on a road and slow down, if there is a hint of a corner or the meerest suggestion of oncoming traffic they wait patiently behind you, give a wave and maybe a friendly toot of their horn as they ease pass. The gents all live long happy lives and are going straight to heaven, no messing about at the pearly gates. The Lads: first of all it is neccessary to explain that the average width of your American pick up is about 9/10ths the width of a lane and a Herbert on bike is about 1/10th the width a lane. The Lads, who make up the vast majority of your pick up driver, know this. They are not malicious but equally there is no way that some snot nosed cyclist is going to slow them down. So if there is no oncoming traffic they just carry on past, if there is oncoming traffic they just carry on past and you get at least an inch of breathing room, very generous some might say. This is where the Shithead comes in. He's had a good look at his pick up and in general he likes what he sees, a fine ve-hi-cle that demonstrates his manliness in spades, with plenty of room for all the guns, dogs, dead deer, barbed wire, beer and jerky a man could use in a lifetime. But there is something troubling him: his pick up is taking up 9/10ths a lane of road, this means that for every dollar of tax he pays on road building and maintenance he's only getting 90 cents worth. Like every hard working man he wants his money worth but as mentioned his pick up is plenty big enough, then comes the eureka moment: he extends his rear axel by a foot, each wheel arch by six inches but leaves the rest of the pick up the same. Genious, now he's taking up the whole lane without a bigger load space and at the same time making it a lot easier to run those free-loading, hippy cyclists off his beloved tarmac. Lastly comes that special breed, the Redneck, with hate in his heart. I have had three run ins with Rednecks and so far i'd say i've had a win, a loss and a draw, so about par for the course. The draw: I am cycling into town along a wide road when I get a loud blast of horn from behind me and an encourgement to get the f*** off the road. 50 yards later I join my fellow motorist at a red light thus giving a perfect opportunity to exchange our philosophies on road use. The loss: I am cycling along a section of road with no hard shoulder, from behind I hear a series of loud honking and the hearty reving of an engine, tuned to vibrate at the resonant frequency of a cyclist's guts, I am in their cross hairs. I squeeze over, cycling on top of the white line seperating the road from the ditch, this is not going to be fun I think. I am not wrong, a green blur flashes past my left ear so close that I can almost smell the dog turds the driver uses as soap. The win: I am out my sadle climbing a short, sharp rise I feel a pick up behind approaching pretty close, weird I think: there is no oncoming traffic. Never mind he won't hit me, he does. I get clipped on the elbow by his wing mirror. My elbow is fine not even a bruise, his mirror is shattered and is now decorating the tarmac, you've got to love karma.

Now I've said some nasty things about pick up drivers but the truth is the vast majority are great, the opposite is true of RV (recreational ve-hi-cle) drivers. These monsters as tall as a house and wide as a Hull native on a deep fried mars bar diet are a curse to the roads. They are piloted by senile, half-blind, half-deaf fossils, whose sole remaining purpose in life is to cover every inch of road in the US, in the comfort of their air conditioned, aluminium fortresses on wheels. There are two real reasons why I reserve a special pool of loathing for them: firstly they drive like the Lads, they have many miles to cover after all and they will not be kept waiting. Secondly they choose, for the same reasons as me, the same roads as me. This point is infuriating because they can't enjoy the views from their tin cans and the invariably winding road makes them a big hazard. But that tarmac must be driven and that road smote from their list.

Finally a note on two wheeled etiquette: My first encounter in the US with another cyclist began with me getting a little over excited to see a fellow biker, a huge grin cracked across my face and I waved furiously across the two lanes of traffic at him. A huge grin cracked across his face and he gives me the two fingered salute. The grin is wiped off my face I am shocked by his wanton cruelty and rejection. Since I have learnt that on this side of the Atlantic the raised two fingers, far from being a medieval taunt at the French boys, is in actuallity the sign for peace. Ever since I have been giving pretty much everyone the two fingers and my inner child giggles everytime. The middle finger retains its meaning and I reserve it for the RV's and Shitheads.