May 5 Boston 200km

[bruce...@rcn.com]

New England Randonneurs' first brevet and second event of the season, a 200km to New Boston, NH, will be held this coming Saturday, May 5.

We had been planning to use a new route for this year, #1245, but were advised late this week that the route may be dangerous to inexperienced riders and that the navigational aids provided may be inadequate. To solve these issues, the navigational aids have been touched-up as needed and altered back to the original route we've used for many non-PBP years, #196; we expect to use this route for the brevet. Justin Brooke and I have previewed the original route and found no construction or other apparent issues.

We hope to revise, possibly resubmit and/or use #1245 after the bugs have been more thoroughly shaken out.

We expect to have updated GPX files and a new cue cue sheet available shortly. We all owe Justin Brooke many thanks for revising the cue sheet into a much more user-friendly format and accommodating these changes on such short notice, especially given his limited time available from other commitments.

Thanks to Pamela Blalock for generating both the original (#196) and new (#1245) routes, as well as advising us of the the new route's condition.

thanks, Bruce

[pamela blalock]

Reply from the route designer (i.e. *not* the ride organizer)

18 years ago, John Bayley and I designed a route for the Boston 200km.
In those ensuing 18 years, the density and speed of traffic has
increased significantly along certain portions of the route. Over the
years some parts of the route were changed by the organizer for
various reasons.

Two years ago, there was no pre-ride and riders came upon a missing
bridge that had been out for several months (on a section that was
*not* on the original route, btw), and had to either scramble down and
up an embankment or find an alternative route! Those pre-rides are
pretty important!

Over three years ago, we offered the organizer a redesigned route
which avoided many of the now-high speed busy roads. The organizer of
the 200km has repeatedly cited lack of time to use the new route,
despite the fact that we have provided detailed cue sheets.

After I had a close call on Rt 31 two years ago, I vowed not to do the
ride again in this form, and made one more attempt to get the route
changed.

This year, the route was finally submitted to RUSA for approval and
was to be used for the upcoming New England Randonneurs 200km. I did a
pre-ride about two weeks ago with another rider, and as I called out a
warning about the angled tracks, I realized that I was uncomfortable
sending a large group on this section with severely angled RR tracks,
and a blind left turn. I came up with a simple work-around that
changed about 2 miles of the route.

Before sending off the changes, I went back up there last Wednesday to
ride this short new section and get detailed annotations for the cue
sheet and saw that arrows had been painted for the new route. The
problem there was that there was one and only one arrow for each turn
and they were located precisely at each turn - no warning arrow ahead,
no confirmation arrow afterwards, as is standard practice for arrowed
rides. This is a hilly route and has a few left turns on descents. I
have always found arrowing both an unnecessary burden for a ride
organizer and not really keeping with the spirit of randonneurring.
But the 200km organizer had insisted the route be arrowed. However,
this style of arrowing would likely be more harm than good, and I
reported this both to the ride organizer and several NER board
members.

I sent the revised cues along with the note of concern about the arrows.

The initial response from the organizer was there was no time to fix
anything. My understanding of RUSA guidelines is part of the point of
the pre-ride is to find issues and fix them. But the second response
from the ride organizer was what was posted here - to go back to the
2010 route, with the busy roads.

I will not ride this route, and would not recommend it to my friends.
18 years ago, Rt 31 was a quiet country road, but today the speeds are
much higher and there are many more cars on that road. If you do the
brevet, please take care.

As my name has been linked to this route, I wanted to clarify that it
was designed 18 years ago, and conditions have changed. I would not
put several of the roads used then on a route today!

For those who would like a more scenic ride along back roads, and
don't need an official 200km, a group of rogues will be heading out
from Hanscom Field on Sunday (the day after the official ride) at 8AM.
This is not a brevet, won't have control cards or any official credit.

The route we are riding can be found here
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/794510


pamela blalock
watertown, ma

http://blayleys.blogspot.com

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[pamela blalock]

In the initial email, Bruce Ingle wrote:
>> > Thanks to Pamela Blalock for generating both the original (#196) and new
>> (#1245) routes, as well as advising us of the the new route's condition.

Because Bruce publicly linked my name with the old route, and because
I had issues with the old route, I felt the need to make quite clear
my feelings about the old route to anyone who knows my other routes
and might think, oh this is one of those nice quiet routes that Pamela
leads on Tuesdays! It is not!


Tracey Ingle wrote:
> I think this subject falls into the category of "sometimes we don't know what we don't know."  As "ride organizer" for something in the ballpark of 10 years, and at least one of the many people who has just been thrown under this bus, it might be helpful to understand a bit about the route approval and change process.

Tracey you were not thrown under the bus. The routes have always been
offered to Bruce and always offered about a year before they would be
run!

> RUSA requires weeks of lead time to approve routes and has at times not been able to approve new routes in time or could refuse to consider new routes due to time constraints.  (Their volunteers do their best to accommodate RBAs, but as with everyone involved there are only 24 hours in their day too.)  And unfortunately, RUSA rules do not allow for route changes without going through the approval process unless there is an emergency situation; a "better way" does not fit this description.

As stated above the first time I offered a new route was right after
completing the ride three years ago and finding Rt 31 and Rt 130
unacceptably busy, with high speed traffic while climbing. So that's a
year of lead time. I gave the new route to Bruce again last October
and sent him photos in November. When I discussed it with him in
January, he said he didn't have time. I then went out and took
detailed notes and provided him with a fully annotated detailed cue
sheet at the end of February. This was submitted to RUSA and approved,
but Bruce insisted it be arrowed.

I don't agree that any brevet needs to be arrowed. It's really not in
the spirit of randonneurring. It tends to discourage social riding and
IMNSHO, is an unnecessary burden on any ride organizer and a poor use
of precious volunteer hours. You asked why I didn't get a can of paint
and go out and arrow. As a lawyer, you may be aware that it is indeed
against the law to do this. You may not be aware that the last time I
arrowed a ride for CRW, the Milford NH police took my name and details
and told me not to deface their roads again! So no I will not go out
and risk getting arrested to arrow a ride.

The two mile change I suggested last week was in the category of one
that is allowed under RUSA rules -

Re-routing for new traffic patterns or avoidance of heavy traffic, so
long as route integrity is not affected
Re-routing to avoid construction or poor road surfaces, so long as
route integrity is not affected

The angled RR crossing was in on a busy section of road and was
followed by a blind left turn on that same busy section of road. I
went out and road the suggested alternative to determine that it
indeed was a better choice and to take notes for the cue sheet I
provided the 8 lines of changes for the cue sheet

But it was while I was out there that I discovered the far more
dangerous arrowing technique where there was one arrow for each turn
with no warning arrows and no confirming arrows. The route has not
been fully arrowed for many years now and folks have managed to either
learn to read a cue sheet, buy and learn to use a GPS or ride with
someone who has! While I said arrows were unnecessary, I do feel that
if you are going to have them they should be put put in a safe and
responsible manner and these were not.

But rather than making the minor change to the cue sheet and
addressing issues with arrows, Bruce chose to dismiss the hours and
hours of time that I had volunteered to create a better experience for
riders, and completely revert to the old route, but still publicly
call it mine! So rather than make a 10 line change he had a volunteer
completely redo the old route into the new cue sheet format. I have no
idea whether they redid all the arrows - or will simply tell people
that the route is partially arrowed. When I was up there last week, I
saw fresh arrows for most of the route back The *new* route had
changes from New Boston to Mason, but also from Mason to Brookline,
from Brookline to Hollis, and in Westford that overlap the old route.
If the new arrows were not changed, it could get very confusing for
riders following the old cue sheet and new arrows.

All this because it was too much trouble to change 8 lines in the cue.
And I dared to report the dodgy arrows in the first place.

> As you know, NER is a volunteer endeavor. Its demands compete with the day to day requirements of life, running a business or being an employee, and managing a family.  Volunteer activities need to be prioritized and sometimes things just can't get done.  A 200k reroute fell into this category of things that would have been great, but, well you know, we had *no* 600k route after Bullard Farm closed so that kind of took priority for a several years, along with other competing tasks.

I am well aware that since NER was formed these events have been a
not-for-profit volunteer effort. Due to my parents health issues, I
had not joined NER previously because I could not commit to any day of
event, since I never knew when I might be called away. But don't
dismiss researching and creating routes as not being a time consuming
or worthwhile effort. I actually spend a lot of time riding various
routes and looking for nice and scenic roads before I ever offer them
up for others.

> You might choose a different path in the future, rather than publicly criticizing       those who give a great deal of time to local randonneuring. For example, rather than complain about the 200k arrowing, you might have instead considering getting a can of paint from the team and adding some arrows. Without the volunteers' help, local BMB and PBP qualification wouldn't have been possible over the past decade.  Yes, there might have been glitches along the way - no one is perfect as your email evidences on several different levels - but the best of intentions were always there.

Tracey I did make every effort to deal with this privately. I knew the
risk I was taking in making this public. But I do think it's important
for riders and organizers alike to be aware of all the options and
concerns

[NickBull]

Arrows?  We don't need no stinkin' arrows!  That's what a cue sheet is for :-)  [or a cue sheet+GPS]

The only brevets I've been on that had arrows are PBP and BMB.  On PBP in 2007 when I was at the back of the pack, some of the critical arrows were missing when I got there.  Good thing I had made an annotated cue sheet (sorry, France, I can't figure out how to read your cue sheets) and a GPS.  Another arrow incident on PBP in 2007: An acquaintance was in a bad accident when some boys in the village thought it was funny to point the arrow the wrong way; then they switched it to the right way at the last instant -- the rider tried to adjust course and went down on wet cobblestones.  On BMB in 2006, the arrows were submerged under half an inch to an inch of running water in the pouring rain on the third night, and were therefore useless.  I checked that my GPS matched the cue sheet (which I couldn't read while riding in the pouring rain at night) and then could confidently follow the GPS from control to control.

So my experience with arrows has not been very promising.  I'd rather rely on a cue sheet, or a cue sheet combined with GPS to beep at me at the turns and rouse me out of my daydreaming.

Nick

[Bob Cooper]

A guy here locally was killed while arrowing a route, so that’s not
only illegal, it’s not totally safe.

Like most illegal stuff.

Bob

[Bob Cooper]

Arrowing a route, news story here:

Geneva, N.Y. – Riders on the Bon Ton Roulet bicycle tour were mourning
the loss of one of their volunteers on Friday after he was struck and
killed by a car while trying to map out a route for fellow riders.

Lt. Eric Heieck said Philip Fountain, 71, was painting lines in the
westbound lanes of Highways 5&20 when he saw a car coming toward him.
The Saratoga County man tried to avoid that car by walking into the
eastbound lanes of the road and was hit.

Police say he was pronounced dead at the scene around 5:30 a.m.

http://tinyurl.com/c8786ch