A clear, beautiful Sunday morning several weeks ago. Our HOG chapter had an easy cruise into cow country. We formed 2 groups of about 8 bikes each, wife and I were at the end of the second group.
At a small country road 4-way stop, a U-haul box-truck waved each of us on for our right turn. We waved, thankful not to be behind a 'slow' rental truck. Remember, all we have here is flat, straight roads.
We get up to the speed limit of 55, when, about a mile down the road, in my mirror I see the truck comin' on... gaining fast. Before I could even imagine what he was gonna do, he was swinging into the left lane to pass our group.
Of course he overshot and hit the left shoulder, showering us with sand and dirt, but he held on, passed us, and flew down the road in pursuit of our first group. There was a car tailgating him...we think they were travelling together.
About a minute later, ahead of us we saw a great cloud of dust on the left. We figured the truck was passing the first group. Just before we got to the dust cloud area, a line of 8 bicyclists went past us heading the opposite direction.
When we came to the dust cloud, nothing there. Huh.
10 minutes later, at the gas stop we found out that the truck came up to our first group, swung left and proceeded to pass them like he did with us... then realized a line of bicyclists was pedalling straight at him... the truck veered left off the road and down the edge of the grassy/sandy swale at roughly 55 mph (our road captain saw the truck passing and was slowing the group), putting the bicyclists going west between him and our group going east. That was the great cloud of dust we saw.
To the trucker's credit, he didn't lose control. Oh, and the car tailgating the truck stayed with him the entire time, including the off-road session.
We were all pretty speechless as we considered the carnage that could have happened. We were hoping to see the truck at the gas station. There would have been carnage, considering the tempers of a couple of our riders.
Now, considering the view the bicyclists had... I'll bet they all have nightmares for some time to come. That they all had uncomfortable seating conditions for the next several miles, is probably a given.
Someone was watching very carefully over 16 motorcyclists, 8 bicyclists, 1 trucker, and 1 cager that morning.