turning drills in Forest Grove at
the 2010 camp.
(Photos: Jim Anderson)
Beginning this Sunday (7/24), Pacific University in Forest Grove will host a camp for some of the nation’s top young road racers. It’s one of eleven USA Cycling Regional Development Camps that are held across the nation with the goal of developing America’s next generation of Tour de France contenders.
Camp manager Jim Anderson says this is the third year Forest Grove has hosted the camp and the number of attendees has more than doubled in that time; from just 15 the first year to 38 expected this year. The riders are between the ages of 14-22 and the camp is a unique opportunity for them to meet other racers, learn race tactics and techniques, and get insights from experienced coaches.
an ideal training ground.
“The camp allows riders to be immersed in cycling for a week,” says Anderson, “it’s a fantastic learning opportunity and it will help them jump to that next level of competitive cycling.”
USA Cycling picked Forest Grove as the location in part because of its easy access to great roads and terrain.
Those roads have helped mold a lot of talent, says Anderson. “Camp alumni have gone on to win National Championships and some recent grads are dominating the domestic race circuit.”
For more info on the camp, visit USACycling.org.
One of the “great roads” these people will be using is Stringtown Road, south of Forest Grove. It has no shoulders and a blind “suicide” hill. When it’s posted that a biking event will take place, we’re at least warned. But usually bikers use this “great road” at any time of day, any day of the week. This “great road” is also used by huge semis serving one of the big nurseries in the area.
So when it’s good biking weather, it’s also good planting weather, which has bikes, semis and plain ol’ motorists like me trying to use this road at the same time. Some day — it’s inevitable — there will be a horrible accident at that blind, “suicide” hill. And the more simple-minded will howl and cry and wonder how it could happen.
It will happen because some people refuse to use their heads.
Bikers should stay on one of the “great roads” that taxpayers have shelled out money to build bike lanes for. They should stay off of dangerous roads like Stringtown, where they are a nuisance at best and a real danger to themselves and others at worst.
But Stringtown, and the section with the “suicide” hill, is always included in any biking event in this area.
Somebody desperately needs to get a clue.
I’ve ridden Stringtown many times and never had any issues. I doubt Zipporah is a cyclist.
I’m not a cyclist, not did I claim to be in my post. I’m a motorist who lives off of Stringtown. So I know about the lack of shoulders on the road and the fact that we do have bike lanes in Forest Grove for you to use.
I’m glad you like the Stringtown area. It’s pretty country out here. But if you get hit by a car or a semi, or cause an accident when a car has to swerve to go around you, when you could just as easily be using roads with shoulders, you will at least have been warned.
You have a choice where you’re going to ride. I live out here. I have to use Stringtown, as do the semis.
If you hit someone because you are driving too fast around a corner or over a blind hill, that is YOUR FAULT, not the person who is riding legally. You are REQUIRED to drive at a safe speed based on road conditions, that is the Basic Rule in the Oregon traffic code.
It just hit me. There are TWO Stringtown Roads in the Forest Grove area. I’m not familiar with the one that goes east; just the one that goes west. It’s the one that goes west that will be inundated with cyclists on the 30th. Those of you who will be riding out here will notice that there are NO shoulders on the road; there IS that blind, suicide hill, and you’ll have to take my word for it about the semi’s in the Spring and Fall, mainly the Spring…just when everyone’s itching to get on their bikes and take a ride in the country.
Sorry, it’s a public road and “bike lanes” don’t cut it for race training, sorry. Slow down and you won’t kill anyone.
I’m talking about common sense and safety.
When you’re enjoying the country scenery on a practice run, obviously not all motorists are going to slow down to 20mph on the shoulderless back roads on the off-chance that some race-training bicyclist MIGHT, at any given hour of daylight, be around the corner or over the hill. We’re going to be going the speed limit. That’s common sense.
And if you’ve chosen a beautiful country road with no shoulders, but with blind hills and blind corners on which to practice your sport, you’re putting your life and the lives of others in danger. That is also common sense.
Whenever I’d see you guys riding on the blind side of a hill, me worried that a car, truck or semi would be flying over the hill to hit you, I’d always wondered if you guys cared that you were putting other people’s lives in danger as well as your own.
Well, I’ve gotten my answer. You feel you have a right to practice your sport wherever and whenever, and it’s everyone else’s job to look out for you, even if that means we basically have to be clairvoyant to know if today we can drive the speed limit, or if today we’re supposed to act like we’re going through a school zone because someone has chosen a dangerous road on which to practice a sport.
I hope, in your insistence on choosing unsafe roads, that you don’t put yourselves in danger (which is your inalienable right), but more importantly that you don’t put innocent people who haven’t made dangerous choices in jeopardy.
Be safe and use some common sense.
Zipporah,
this has nothing to do with whether or not a vehicle user is doing a “sport” or not. How many people in motor vehicles are on the roads just for fun? A lot. Yet you never hear ppl label/categorize recreational driving or driving for fun the same way you are labeling bicycling.
The laws give each vehicle the right to be on the road and everyone is expected — by law and basic, common sense morality — to treat other road users with respect.
Again. The type of bicycling someone is going — whether they’re transporting themselves to their job or riding for other reasons — should not be an issue.
The issue is that some people choose to pass unsafely and operate their vehicles in a manner that puts others in danger and/or stresses them out.
Zipporah – You can always drive the speed limit. Just recognize that Oregon’s Basic Rule means that it isn’t always the number that you see on the big white sign. When you top out that blind hill at speed, you may find a bicycle, a dog, a local child, a downed tree, or a stalled car on the road in front of you. If you’re going too fast to stop before you run into it, it’s your fault. So, as you said, “Be safe and use some common sense.”
You need to understand that bikes are vehicles just like cars, people use them for lots of purposes – both necessary and not. Drivers of both types of vehicles have the right to go where they wish. If you don’t think Stringtown road is safe, then you should be calling Washington County and demanding they improve it, not singling out one group of road users and demanding that they avoid “your” road.
The speed limit as shown on the sign is the maximum allowed for that road, given perfect conditions. It’s not a minimum, which most drivers (myself included) treat it as.
What happens if you come over a blind crest or around a blind corner and there’s an older lady crossing the road to her mailbox? Or someone trying to back a truck and trailer into a driveway? Or someone waiting to turn left into a driveway? It’s not just cyclists that are the problem over blind crests and corners– if drivers slowed down and used proper caution over blind crests and around blind corners, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
I agree with the dog, downed tree example. I bicycle out on those roads and I’m a seasoned motorcyclist. Driving is a privilege, not a right. There are obviously some roads that are exceedingly hazardous to ride a bicycle on, but that road is not one of them. Bicyclists need to stay close to the fog line, and wear bright colors on roads like that. Motorists need to be alert and drive their machines with an adequate safety margin for any given road conditions. We can coexist, if everyone behaves responsibly.
You are taking what is the DRIVER’S RESPONSIBILITY, to drive SAFELY and appropriately for the conditions, and putting it onto the cyclist. Sorry, that isn’t how it works.
As a driver, it is YOUR DUTY (in fact, your ONLY duty while driving), to be alert and attentive to the road and any potentially hazardous conditions, be it a cyclist, a loose horse, someone backing a trailer out of a driveway, or anything else. You should be driving in such a way that coming across a cyclist shouldn’t be a worrisome encounter.
A blind hill or curve you say? Maybe don’t take those at 40 MPH and there won’t be an issue – why would you drive so fast if you can’t see what’s ahead of you in the first place? That’s how people die every year in head-on accidents on those twisty routes the the coast.
It sounds like what you want is to be able to drive the exact speed limit without having to think to hard or worry about anything, and that is a
Sorry, that should say “and that is a scary thing.” at the end of my last post.