from PA to CP, there was a serious cross wind (from the left) so the technique was refined a bit.
As soon as you are within about 30m from any vehicle, of 50m from road trains, the bufetting starts. This is very short bursts of wind from the sides that wabbly youy but don’t generally push you off course. Moving to the right hand lane (the oncoming lane) fixes this immediately. IF theres no one coming the other direction, its even better.
Now, Accellerate past the other vehicle. Normally I sit on about 120kph so this means getting to 130-140 to pass them. This is all fine as by sitting on their RHS, you are protected from the crosswind and its quite peaceful. Any gaps, between trailers for example, the wind hits you again and you have to go back to a 20-30 degree lean to stay heading the the right direction. This is not bad as if you don’t react fast enough, you just slip to the right and its all fine (theres normally some spare lane available).
Now, When you get to the front of the truck, theres a SERIOUS bow wave of air happening. The first few times I wasn’t expecting this to be as big as it was and ended up about 100cm too far to the right. Again, this is not bad as theres always spare lane. At the front, you have to prepare for the bow wave and re-lean the bike to the left. This has the effect of turning you, quite sharply, into the front of the truck. Not altogether a good idea BUT then the wave of air comes and you end up going straigit ahead again. When the rest of the wind comes (remember the crosswind) you are probably far enough
in front of the truck to head the right direction and as its less then the bow wave, you end up in the left hand lane again with a sense of a job well done.
The first few times I did this, theres less of a sense of ‘making it in the big world of touring bikers’ than a sense of ‘making it in your pants’.