Not nearly as exciting as Dutchy's story - the Crib Pt B grade RR was "nullified" on Saturday

I didn't actually see the particular incident that tripped this (I was
out the back by then, job done ...), but on Saturday, the Crib Pt B
grade road race was nullified after the finish due to excessive numbers
of riders on the wrong side of the road in the leadup to the sprint.

I fully support the actions of the Chelsea club and race director in
doing this. We were told very clearly at the start that we could only
use the full width of the road once we got to the carpark boundary.
According to Mal Sawford (who reported it, and was at the rear of the
bunch and saw it) the bunch spread across the whole road from about 2km
to go. As such, the organisers gave the B grade field the collective
choice to all get fined, or have the race nullified. We chose
nullification which I think was a good choice. One of my boys (that I
worked very hard for for the first 50km of the race) got second, and he
agreed that he'd prefer to have the race scrubbed in the hope that the
riders there will learn. He *wasn't* on the wrong side of the road, as
he was up the front where he should be with 2k to go, but agreed with
the decision of the race director, and forfetted his prizemoney
accordingly in the hope that in future those riders who cheated will be
less likely to do so again.

I've been an advocate for such an action in the past, as at a number of
courses, notably Crib Pt and Summers riders persistantly cheat and put
themselves and the rest of the field in considerable danger by
overtaking on the wrong side of the road, which is *strictly* against
the rules of the road *and* the rules of the race. In this instance,
the race director had made the point very clearly at the start of the
race about when we could go wide, where in the past it has been
ambiguous.

The only way to stamp out this cheating* is to get fair dinkum with the
penalties, and I congratulate the Chelsea club for doing so.


* it's cheating, those of us that play by the rules work our way to the
front without crossing the lines, and if we can't, then that's our bad
luck and bad race positioning. Riding up the outside is disadvantaging
the riders who are playing by the rules, not to mention dangerous and
illegal.

On 2006-05-15, Bleve (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
The only way to stamp out this cheating* is to get fair dinkum with the
penalties, and I congratulate the Chelsea club for doing so.

Story needs more bad guys in hotted up cars and action heros on
bicycles.


I still doan geddit though. You are banned from using the wrong side
of the road, which implies to me that only half the road is closed?
Eeek! You mean, cars could be coming the other way, doing up to the
speed limit (what is the speed limit?), and if wheels touch and
someone goes down, they can go down into the path of an oncoming
vehicle? Or, as someone mentioned in this or another forum
(bicigaga?) a few days ago, you can get disqualified despite someone
suddenly stopping in their tracks by sitting up, and your evasive
action is to take the only open path that is available to you?

Why is closing off an entire road so much harder than closing off half
a road, such as to make it not worthwhile to attempt to do so?

--
TimC
} Is "wrongest" an actual word?
} It's a perfectly cromulent word.
Which, when used, embiggens us all.
-- Jeff Ramsey, Steed and D. Joseph Creighton in ASR

TimC wrote:
On 2006-05-15, Bleve (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
The only way to stamp out this cheating* is to get fair dinkum with the
penalties, and I congratulate the Chelsea club for doing so.

Story needs more bad guys in hotted up cars and action heros on
bicycles.


I still doan geddit though. You are banned from using the wrong side
of the road, which implies to me that only half the road is closed?

None of the road is closed, except at the sprint finish.

Eeek! You mean, cars could be coming the other way, doing up to the
speed limit (what is the speed limit?), and if wheels touch and
someone goes down, they can go down into the path of an oncoming
vehicle?

Yes. Equally this can happen to a bunch of riders just out for a ride.
A race or otherwise makes no difference.

Or, as someone mentioned in this or another forum
(bicigaga?) a few days ago, you can get disqualified despite someone
suddenly stopping in their tracks by sitting up, and your evasive
action is to take the only open path that is available to you?

Not necessarily. My understanding is that you can cross the line to
take evasive action, but not deliberatly do it. Ie: if you cross the
line to dodge a crash etc, then that's ok, but if you cross the line to
make position in the bunch, then that's not ok. See the difference?
It's not always easy to tell, but often it is very easy to do so. When
8 riders take off down the wrong side, scoot up to the front and
reinject into the bunch, that's pretty clear.

Why is closing off an entire road so much harder than closing off half
a road, such as to make it not worthwhile to attempt to do so?

It's not possible to close the roads at all except in very limited
circumstances (eg: sprint finishes, which are over a short distance and
only last a couple of minutes)

Welcome to amateur road racing

In aus.bicycle on 14 May 2006 23:25:01 -0700
Bleve wrote:
I've been an advocate for such an action in the past, as at a number of
courses, notably Crib Pt and Summers riders persistantly cheat and put
themselves and the rest of the field in considerable danger by
overtaking on the wrong side of the road, which is *strictly* against
the rules of the road *and* the rules of the race. In this instance,

Years ago when I was doing motorcycle marshaling for races in the
Adelaide Hills we had continual problems with this.

I'd ride my bike on the white line and yell at them, and take numbers
of the worst offenders. Was sorta like herding cats to get them all
on the right side of the road....

Zebee

In aus.bicycle on Mon, 15 May 2006 06:35:58 GMT
TimC wrote:

Why is closing off an entire road so much harder than closing off half
a road, such as to make it not worthwhile to attempt to do so?

Roads aren't closed. That needs police presence.

Motorcycle marshals would ride ahead and (illegally) block off side
roads till the race passed though.

Zebee

On 2006-05-15, Zebee Johnstone (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
I'd ride my bike on the white line and yell at them, and take numbers
of the worst offenders. Was sorta like herding cats to get them all
on the right side of the road....

Well, that's your problem. They were trying to stick to the left, but
you kept on telling them to stay to the right!

--
TimC
I am not a number. I'm a Free NaN. -- Chris Reuter in ARK

On 2006-05-15, Bleve (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

TimC wrote:
On 2006-05-15, Bleve (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
The only way to stamp out this cheating* is to get fair dinkum with the
penalties, and I congratulate the Chelsea club for doing so.

Story needs more bad guys in hotted up cars and action heros on
bicycles.


I still doan geddit though. You are banned from using the wrong side
of the road, which implies to me that only half the road is closed?

None of the road is closed, except at the sprint finish.

Yikes. What do you do about abusive motorists behind and
intersections in front? Is it even legal, given that you are going to
be more than two abreast being overtaken by two abreast?

--
TimC
I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere. --unknown

flyingdutch wrote:
how is rd closed at sprint finish?

presumably that means you have marshals who are qualified as traffic
marshals? ie they 'can' tell traffic what to do???

That's exactly it. A number of clubs pay to have members qualified as
traffic controllers, so they can (with appropriate permits etc)
temporarily close the road.

of course in_an_ideal_world one could choose a location where sprint
finish is on such a section of road where this ould be a) wide enuff
and b) close-able

Crib Pt is good for this, it's wide, and closable near the finish.


i dream of winning tatts (quite a few times) buyng a laaarge slab of
land to put a bmx-skate park, multiple mtb trails, trials areas, crit
course and road race course Dutchy Springs™ "One werd. Dutchin"

You've just described "Camp aboc", but without the skater magnet

Bleve Wrote:
flyingdutch wrote:
how is rd closed at sprint finish?

presumably that means you have marshals who are qualified as traffic
marshals? ie they 'can' tell traffic what to do???

That's exactly it. A number of clubs pay to have members qualified as
traffic controllers, so they can (with appropriate permits etc)
temporarily close the road.

of course in_an_ideal_world one could choose a location where sprint
finish is on such a section of road where this ould be a) wide enuff
and b) close-able

Crib Pt is good for this, it's wide, and closable near the finish.


i dream of winning tatts (quite a few times) buyng a laaarge slab of
land to put a bmx-skate park, multiple mtb trails, trials areas,
crit
course and road race course Dutchy Springs™ "One werd.
Dutchin"

You've just described "Camp aboc", but without the skater magnet

Hmmm "Dutchy Springs" vs "Camp aboc"

why do they bring to mind 2 very different pictures ie one has a new
estate on it, the other is a bunch of rampant hung over 18-20's trying
to supervise 10-13 yrs old doing " activities in a safe, fun, holiday
environment"



--
warrwych