Schreck, George
As one of the three people who spent 2 hours Saturday evening sweeping the
road, I can assure you that there was no gravel whatsoever on the road. As
I did my time trial, it appeared that someone when to great effort to throw
shovelfulls of gravel on the road. Given the lack yesterday and the
concentrated amounts today, it is clear someone decided to undo our efforts.
A large number of people saw us sweeping yesterday and apparently one of
them decided to adversely affect the race. On the other hand, there was the
nice gentleman who let us use his front yard for the start and offered the
use of his hose for any water needs. In only shows that the world is full
of all kinds of people, and I am sorry for any flats people suffered.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to stop that behavior on an open road, and
we can only hope that the individual who did this realizes the effort he
wasted as it did not stop the race and will not prevent others from riding
on that road.
George C. Schreck
Phone: (503) 813-7211
Fax: (503) 813-7252
-----Original Message-----
From: sandy kenny [mailto:sasha-@aol.com]
Sent: Sunday, July 30, 2000 2:21 PM
To: ob-@topica.com
Subject: [OBRA Chat] District tt course, tacks, impressions?
Beginning somewhere between the 10K turnaround and the 20K turnaround, there
were several areas of gravel extending all the way across the road on the
course when I went through.
I could've been pissed off at the race organizers, but as it was, I was
merely surprised, because I had driven the course shortly before 7AM, and
these gravel areas were not there. (There had been a couple of areas where
gravel had been kicked out of people's driveways, but they were just at the
shoulder. These areas weren't immediately associated with any driveways that
I could see.)
Somewhere between the 20K turnaround and the ???K (how long was this
course?)
turnaround, I flatted.
Okay, not a big deal, happens to everyone eventually, I can deal with it.
EXCEPT that when I examined the tire, the invading foreign object was a
brand-new 3/8" tack.
I assure you that this object was not in my tire at the start of the race.
The tack (I still have it) is a tailor-made skinny-tire assassination tool.
I can see no reason whatsoever why it would be a natural inhabitant of a
road, unlike sticks, toads, rocks, broken glass, bits of barbed wire...all
of
which I could chalk up to just darned bad luck.
In conjunction with the freshly-"graveled" areas, the presence of a shiny
new
tack on the road surface suggests to me the likelihood that the timetrial
course was deliberately "enhanced" by someone - perhaps an area resident who
is not bike-friendly.
If that is the case, I am sickened. Too many people put too much time into
preparing for a district event to have that effort negated by what amounts
to
terrorist action. For whatever reason - probably random chance - I'm lucky
enough to have a couple of really good friends who devoted several hours to
getting my bike PERFECT for this race...hours spent to get me those last 5
or
10 seconds, just for the fun of seeing me do well. Their work was important
to me, and the thought that it might have been wasted by some idiot
spreading
tacks on the road, because he hates cyclists, really galls me.
No one is guaranteed a finish at any event, and any number of road hazards
*might* present themselves to prevent an individual from finishing. I
understand that.
But acts of plain meanness should not - can not - be ignored. I'm hoping
that
if other folks had the same impression (I hope not the same result!), that
the race organizers will follow up with local law enforcement. Fortunately,
I
wasn't hurt - but a blowout at speed could lead to a crash.
And, does anyone have any good ideas for dealing with similar situations in
the future? In the county road / event permitting stages? More course
monitoring? Local police presence? I belong to a club which puts on touring
events, would hate to see this kind of road malevolence spread to our
events.
Thanks,
Sandy
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