Long Tom

The setup: I was about 25 miles into a bad-weather 50-miler. I was on a rural 2-lane highway with essentially no consistent shoulder. I was riding next to the fog line. It was drizzling rain.

(I have to do a 3-mile stretch of this road to connect up the parts of my loop)

I'm going about 12-15 mph and my turnoff is about 50 yards ahead. I'm turning right. There's no stop sign or light for the road I'm on, as it's a highway.

I hear a rather noisy (road noise) vehicle coming up behind me. When he's maybe 20 yards behind me, I hear a tire skid- our favorite noise, right? Now I'm more like 30 yards from my turnoff.

As I make the turn he's right on my ass. Once we turn, he pulls next to me, passenger window down, and yells the following in a nasally, whiny voice:

"Follow the rules of the road! Use your hand like a turn signal! Be SAFE"

I gave him a perturbed look and be zoomed off.

Now here's what's annoying. Technically- he's right! I didn't signal. But here's the thing. Over by the edge of this road, things are a bit dicey at times. You can't count on the pavement. In fact, approaching this corner it's fairly bumpy and you never know what debris you'll find. In addition to this- and this is a big deal- a disproportionate amount of time, these "loud road noise" vehicles are jacked-up trucks with younger rednecks driving, and while I'm not casting stones here, that's the crowd that I have my most "close flybys" with.

So my point, my first point, is that there's NO WAY I'm taking a hand off my bars to signal. Not on rough pavement with a roaring vehicle approaching fast. And once I heard that tire skid, I was in pure survival mode.

(Turned out it was a late-80's Toyota truck on big worn mud tires... I don't know if the skid was from downshifting, a grabby brake caliper, or what...)

My second point is that me signaling wouldn't have changed A DAMN THING. Whether I was turning, or going straight, since HE was turning also and didn't have enough road to pass me and right-hook in front of me, he had to wait (like 3 seconds!) either way.

I wasn't real pissed; he didn't curse at me (that I heard) and what he said had merit. He may even have been a cyclist. Skinny hippy kid in his mid-20's. But I'd have loved to have a conversation with him to explain the reality on the ground from my perspective.

I think, it annoyed him that my existence cost him a few seconds. Regardless of the fact that a press of his toe fixes THAT, since he's, oh, in a CAR and all!

Curious what y'all think- seeing as his yelling actually had merit.