Sorry Joey,

I had one try to pull me under on a tour, with a 25 mph cross head wind.

I was riding with a friend and he had the same experience.

I would have been killed if not for having both hands on the bars.

You need to get out of town more.

You were getting hit by the wind, then the truck blocked the wind while you were leaning into it IMO. There is no "suck" behind a truck, only relief from the wind. Just watch the dirt or leaves or gum wrappers on the ground when a speeding truck passes over them. They don't get vacuumed up. They might move with the truck several feet since they weigh nothing, but they are not experiencing any forces that could "suck in" anything weighting over one ounce. There is no science to support your claim whatsoever. Only testimonials from mistaken individuals.

It was still truck wind suck...

No such thing.

Maybe a rider gets caught off guard, startled, then visual fixation on hazard causes rider to steer TOWARD the hazard. Mountain bikers know this well - look where you WANT TO GO and not at the hazards you want to avoid or you will steer TOWARD them.

You can search online for a thousand years and you will find no science proving a large truck sucks IN air anywhere. It DISPLACES air OUTWARD as it passes because the air, and the box on the truck, can't occupy the same space at the same time just like a ship pushing though water. The water and air MUST go AWAY from the mass as it passes through the air/water. There is a miniscule drop in atmospheric pressure a few feet behind a large boxed truck but not enough to move more than a few dead leaves.

If semi truck vacuum existed, motorcycles would get sucked into it all day long. It does not exist.

I think we can agree that a semi- produces huge eddies and swirls of displaced air as it moves, a large component of this moving air is, in fact, moving towards the body of the semi. Motorcycles primarily feel the buffet from the initial wave front of the truck which is outward. The smallest displacement street legal motorcycles probably weigh hundreds of times what a bicycle weighs. The swirls and eddies that roll alongside the body of the semi as it passes affect a motorcycle less than a bicycle. The motorcycle is also usually moving along at a significant fraction of the speed of the semi. I am not certain of exactly why but people that are stationary at the side of the road, troopers giving speeding tickets and people dealing with vehicle breakdowns are very susceptible to being hit by vehicles traveling in the extreme right lane, even when the vehicle does not leave its lane! I have experience both as a motorcyclist passing and being passed by big rigs on interstates and also as a stationary object on the shoulder of roads where vehicle speeds are legally in excess of 45mph. Its worse to be stationary. There is something to what Joey says, however, if you keep a cool head and hold your line you do not have to crash into or away from a big rig.

H

True story, happened to a Trek Across Maine rider, this year, killed him. According to witnesses, the rider was drinking from his water bottle as he was getting passed.

As a general rule I find that the truckers are a lot better (at least on my commute) about giving room when passing. The truck drivers usually pull into the other lane when they pass me, if they can.

The closest I have ever been passed, was a woman in a Subaru. My hand to the gods, she wasn't six inches off my handlebars.

Joey,

I Safely road motorcycles for 28 years (no crashes) (9 years as a commercial truck driver, still have my CDL.

Wind Suck tried to pull me under the box trailer of an 18 wheeler. The pull started about at the center of the box trailer. The truck was about 2.5 feet to my left on a two lane road with no shoulder.