| Subject: | Re: more centerline discussion |
| Date: | 03/29/2004 03:35 AM |
| From: | Jerald Powell |
|
--Apple-Mail-13--794695132 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Come on folks... ride the bike. The piece of road in question has been a part of many, if not most piece of cake races since the first one I rode... I think in 1980 or '81, can't be sure. Having not been there this weekend, I don't know what y'all were doing out there, but in the past, the lead car usually went far enough ahead to shut down on-coming traffic. By the way, it's the same thing on a forest service road, or any other non-center line road for that matter. So do you go neutral in that kind of situation? I guess you could, but the reasonable (and tactically correct) way to ride that kind of racing situation is to make sure you're at or off the front when you enter that road. If you were caught back in the pack when you left the good road , you're going to have a long day, 'cause the leaders can and should be putting some distance on you. As they say. That's road racing. Jerry On Mar 29, 2004, at 9:44 AM, Adams, Mike wrote: I know I am just one, but unless this situation gets some serious attention then that is the last time I will do piece of cake. The way to handle no center line is to go neutral and everyone holds his\her position. This would be the fair thing to do. The first and second corner on that stretch of rode are blind and all it would take is for a disgruntled driver, who can drive on that side of the rode at the speed posted or there about, to cut the corner and many riders are injured seriously or fatally. I do not think we need this type of incident for OBRA. Just my opinion. Mike Adams -----Original Message----- From: Nick Glazener [mailto:dirty-@attbi.com] Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 8:50 AM To: ob-@topica.com Subject: [OBRA Chat] more centerline discussion The POC presented some unique center line challenges on Dannon Rd.. I understood that the centerline rule still applied even on the narrow Dannon Rd.. That would have been very difficult since there was no clear center line. There was a lot of confusion about the issue within the pack (4/5). After a couple laps it was obvious to me that if I respected the rule, then I was going to loose position in the pack to those that were ignoring the rule. As most racers know, the safest place was in the front quarter of the pack. None of the riders that were attacking the left side of the road wanted to actually share the pace workload. I broke the rule on the third lap to get up the front third. It didn't do me any any good because there were 3 times as many offenders that passed me. There was a lot of verbal bantering. One rider was quite verbal about pointing out the offending riders by number. It was annoying but appropriate to use peer pressure. It was potentially a very dangerous situation if there had been a car up. There was also some frustration with a team sending riders up in a break away and then blocking at the front (another topic). It would have been a very difficult job for an official to monitor and enforce. There wasn't even a safe place for an official's car to come along the side and warn offending riders. I wonder if it would be safe to have the official car travel on the left side of the pack for those narrow roads. The same situation exist for those races that use Forrest Service roads. However, those roads tend to be in the hills which thin the pack out. I don't think there any easy answers for this. I expect the official response to be, "the rule was in effect and officials should have enforced it." The application in reality may not be so easy. In the end, it all sorted itself out for a good finish and no injuries from a center line violation. Jerald M Powell, AICP Community Planning 1926 SW Madison Street Portland, OR 97205 503 222 7173 503 799 7823 jpow-@spiritone.com --Apple-Mail-13--794695132 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/enriched; charset=US-ASCII Come on folks... ride the bike. The piece of road in question has been a part of many, if not most piece of cake races since the first one I rode... I think in 1980 or '81, can't be sure. Having not been there this weekend, I don't know what y'all were doing out there, but in the past, the lead car usually went far enough ahead to shut down on-coming traffic. By the way, it's the same thing on a forest service road, or any other non-center line road for that matter. So do you go neutral in that kind of situation? I guess you could, but the reasonable (and tactically correct) way to ride that kind of racing situation is to make sure you're at or off the front when you enter that road. If you were caught back in the pack when you left the good road , you're going to have a long day, 'cause the leaders can and should be putting some distance on you. As they say. That's road racing. Jerry On Mar 29, 2004, at 9:44 AM, Adams, Mike wrote: <excerpt> I know I am just one, but unless this situation gets some serious attention then that is the last time I will do piece of cake. The way to handle no center line is to go neutral and everyone holds his\her position. This would be the fair thing to do. The first and second corner on that stretch of rode are blind and all it would take is for a disgruntled driver, who can drive on that side of the rode at the speed posted or there about, to cut the corner and many riders are injured seriously or fatally. I do not think we need this type of incident for OBRA. Just my opinion. Mike Adams -----Original Message----- From: Nick Glazener [mailto:dirty-@attbi.com] Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 8:50 AM To: ob-@topica.com Subject: [OBRA Chat] more centerline discussion The POC presented some unique center line challenges on Dannon Rd.. I understood that the centerline rule still applied even on the narrow Dannon Rd.. That would have been very difficult since there was no clear center line. There was a lot of confusion about the issue within the pack (4/5). After a couple laps it was obvious to me that if I respected the rule, then I was going to loose position in the pack to those that were ignoring the rule. As most racers know, the safest place was in the front quarter of the pack. None of the riders that were attacking the left side of the road wanted to actually share the pace workload. I broke the rule on the third lap to get up the front third. It didn't do me any any good because there were 3 times as many offenders that passed me. There was a lot of verbal bantering. One rider was quite verbal about pointing out the offending riders by number. It was annoying but appropriate to use peer pressure. It was potentially a very dangerous situation if there had been a car up. There was also some frustration with a team sending riders up in a break away and then blocking at the front (another topic). It would have been a very difficult job for an official to monitor and enforce. There wasn't even a safe place for an official's car to come along the side and warn offending riders. I wonder if it would be safe to have the official car travel on the left side of the pack for those narrow roads. The same situation exist for those races that use Forrest Service roads. However, those roads tend to be in the hills which thin the pack out. I don't think there any easy answers for this. I expect the official response to be, "the rule was in effect and officials should have enforced it." The application in reality may not be so easy. In the end, it all sorted itself out for a good finish and no injuries from a center line violation. </excerpt>Jerald M Powell, AICP <italic><x-tad-smaller>Community Planning</x-tad-smaller></italic> 1926 SW Madison Street Portland, OR 97205 503 222 7173 503 799 7823 jpow-@spiritone.com --Apple-Mail-13--794695132-- |
