Mike Murray
The simple answer is; yes, a permit is required. There are several reasons
for this; liability, Oregon statues and regulations, public perception, etc.
You are probably OK with you and your have dozen buddies sprinting for a
city limit sign assuming no one pulls out and obstructs traffic or does
something else stupid. When you start getting a larger number of people
together, keeping times, awarding places, etc. you are on much shakier
ground. Unofficial races only cause problems for legitimate bike races.
The other side of this issue is that there are few places where doing a bike
race legitimately is easier than it is here in Oregon. If you are going to
do something, it is worthwhile to do it right.
Mike Murray
-----Original Message-----
From: obra-bounces@list.obra.org [mailto:obra-bounces@list.obra.org] On
Behalf Of Brian Sather
Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2007 14:44 PM
To: obra@list.obra.org
Subject: Re: [OBRA Chat] self-supported race?
Would you really need a road permit for a self-supported race: no officials,
no entry fee, no aid station, . . .no permit? After all, we do our club
rides and sprint rides all the time without permits. What is the difference
if we simply added in some formal results by monitoring our own finish
position and maybe even timing ourselves?
I know it could be potentially dangerous and there are liability concerns,
but let's hypothetically assume that all traffic laws are obeyed during this
"race." I'm guessing there are probably some Oregon laws about racing
vehicles on roadways, so maybe someone with a better knowledge of this can
explain. However, in most cases racing a bicycle doesn't involve exceeding
the speed limit, so somehow an officer would have to determine that racing
is occurring instead of merely one cyclist passing another legally (on the
left?).
It appears that Jeff was successful with his triathlon. Nice story. Can a
similar event happen in bicycle racing? I would call it a pseudo-official
race--not supported by OBRA, of course.