route marks against the law ???

Greg, your post is very timely, as the marks proliferating on local roads here have drawn attention and complaints of some residents with a newspaper article last month. My thoughts are that the markings are obnoxious and should be stopped. Cycling clubs have no legal right to mark public roadways, and it's just a matter of time before we get called on it and either fined or forced to cover the marks. I've tried a couple ways to remove the paint on asphalt roads, but it's not easy to get the paint off.

The worst offenders this season were the race group, who sprayed "Bike Race in Progress" at several points on the road race course. The marking was only used one afternoon, but the paint will take a couple of years to wear off. The other bad one was the Tour de Cure charity event. They must have sprayed "TDC" at least 1000 times on roads all over several counties.

I've done course marking several times for our club century, including this year, but won't do it again. We need to move to chalk, stick-on paper route arrows (you buy them on rolls), or stand-up signs put down the AM of the event, and stop defacing public roads with grafitti.

I completely understand you point on that big of a scale, where there are sentences written down across the whole street. The marks I see were no bigger than 10 inches, and on the very corner of the street where you would not even spot it unless you were looking for it. Those routes are used everyday by multiple riders, all season long, and most of them are on side streets. I agree that there are different ways of mapping out routes as well.

While I feel it is lame to claim this (the small route markings) is vandalism, the cycling groups need to work with community groups to ensure things are done with prior permission and in accordance with local regs. There are enough folks who would like to see us off the road completely that there's no reason to single ourselves out further by overstepping the local rules for our own convenience. Where we have some support, we need to make sure we're doing everything we can not to give ammunition to opponents who would like to see that support withdrawn.

When we organize events, we bend over backwards to get the community involved with events for the kids, promotion of local businesses, proceeds to local charities, etc.... on top of paying the community for use permits, police support, etc for the event. Still, despite all the positives, the event better come off without a hitch if we want any chance of being invited back again the next year.

Sorry to say it, but welcome to minority status. It's now easy for folks to take your rights away simply because there are more of them. Better be going out of your way to make friends, and carefully considering any actions that could make a single enemy.

I don't buy the idea of marking routes, either. If I were an owner, I'd be [censored] if someone marked a tree of mine, or anything else on my property. Route be damned. Frankly, I feel the same about marking public property, too.

We could reason that gangs should be allowed to mark whatever they want so long as they don't make their marking too big.

Riding a route is easy:

1. If you have gps, use a routre on your gps unit.
2. If you don't have gps, write out a route sheet or route card, and stick it somewhere on yourself or your body.

El Tour de Tucson is a route management nightmare. There are 9,000+ riders and three routes, with one being 109 miles. They don't mark the route. They give you a route sheet. It works. It's simple. It's nondestructive.

There is a local road that has had the words "Turn Around" and an arrow showing this painted on the asphalt and it has been like this for three years now and is just beginning to fade. I agree with chalk and route sheets but I am against painted marks on the road.

alienator said:

I don't buy the idea of marking routes, either. If I were an owner, I'd be [censored] if someone marked a tree of mine, or anything else on my property. Route be damned. Frankly, I feel the same about marking public property, too.

We could reason that gangs should be allowed to mark whatever they want so long as they don't make their marking too big.

Riding a route is easy:

1. If you have gps, use a routre on your gps unit.
2. If you don't have gps, write out a route sheet or route card, and stick it somewhere on yourself or your body.

El Tour de Tucson is a route management nightmare. There are 9,000+ riders and three routes, with one being 109 miles. They don't mark the route. They give you a route sheet. It works. It's simple. It's nondestructive.

Good to hear that others share my concern about road painting. I certainly wouldn't want marks in the street in front of my house, so I can imagine how non-cyclists feel about them. Believe it's just a matter of time before we get called to remove or cover marks, or pay the county to have them removed.

It's valuable info to learn that El Tour de Tucson doesn't mark roads. We only have 300 or so riders, and prepare accurate cue sheets and maps for every rider and every route. This year we had 5 different route options, from 32 miles up to 109, and that was too many. The options mean we had to mark "splits" on the road with mileage numbers under the main turn indicators. The two longer routes were on a totally seperate course from the three shorter ones, so that probably 100 road markings were spread out over a large area in two states.

Most everyone here just puts the cue sheet and maps in their pocket and then ignores them, relying on the road paint instead. It does slow things down a lot to have to follow a cue sheet, reading ahead and remembering the next turn in 2.3 miles. But I'm sure it's a skill that people would get better at if they had to do it. The ex-racers in the club think the annual spaghetti century should be run like a race, which of course it isn't.

The fear here is that without clear turn marks in advance, riders would get confused at turns and crashes will result. Does El Tour have lots of crashes at turns? Perhaps with 9000 riders there is so much traffic that everyone can just play follow the leader.

In the East NC Bike MS tour, they use arrow signs either stapled to utility poles or on stakes in ground. Makes for easy removal. Our local annual ride we use directional signs on stakes. We place them the evening before the ride and remove them as the last riders goe thru the routes. No painting of the road.

IMO small markings on the pavement are more difficult to spot than a sign as you are looking down at the road instead of ahead of you. In larger groups, this can lead to a possible crash.

The impression that I'm getting from the OP is that in his area clubs are marking the roads for the various weekly rides, rather than a large, special events. If there are marks all over town for the various rides, I can definitely see the authorities being pressured to crack down. For weekly rides here, most of the folks are regulars and know the routes, and ride leaders are responsible for making sure any new riders get home safely. Route markings would be seen as extraneous and obnoxious.

For bigger events, route maps and staked turn signs and corner/traffic volunteers are the norm.

The crashes in El Tour are most often from people either believing they'll get a pro ride if they're seen motoring through the peloton or people not having the skills to ride in a group. With so many participants, I guess you have to expect a fair number of crashes.

I know of afew common routes in my area athat are marked with arrows and such. I also see very old yard sale, lost dog etc. posted but never taken down.
I guess I can see the logic in the regulations.

Agree signs are a great way to mark the route as they are visible from a good way back, much further than paint marks on the road. Our club has a few signs made of "plastic cardboard", yellow with red arrows. However, the concern with these has been theft or spoofing (moving of the signs). Often volunteers like to mark the route a week before the event, which of course provides plenty of opportunity to the miscreants.

To avoid this risk, we could have the SAG or rest stop vehicles set out the signs the morning of the event, ahead of the riders. Collecting the signs could be done late in the day by the same vehicles as the return to the finish behind the last riders. Believe that's what I'll recommend to our august board of officers for all future events.

This issue

I agree with all, that there are better ways of marking routes than spray paint. Specially for an event such as a race or a century ride. Another way is to use commercialy made plastic stick-on markers. Some roads don't have a nearby sign or a tree, or a telephone pole.

The paper stick-on arrows are available from www.routearrows.com They come 250 arrows to a roll for around $50. Looks like a good system, particularly out west where dry roads are more likely. According to the site, they disintegrate with traffic and weather quickly, so no need to go back over the routes to scrape them up.

A set of plastic standup signs isn't cheap either, but of course those can be reused. They come on the wire stands that you just push into the ground. May need a few more volunteers for the morning of the event, and to pick them up in the afternoon.