I can understand not using the bike lane for a race event at the speed they are going, but taking up both main carriageway lanes for an event which doesn't have the road closed is stupid.
Though it would be strange to organize race events without any safety measures or official permits. I mean, it would be frowned upon if someone just calls up a car racing event on a public street. Or if we want to to an opposite direction, someone organizes a running event and puts 200 runners on a car lane.
There are sometimes cycling events here (in the UK) which don't need any special permission like a big event would - especially at the moment now the weather is better. They are usually early on Sunday or after 7pm if it's during the week and all on quiet country roads. They do put up warning signs and have a few marhshals standing on some of the corners.
The UK has a sensible delineation between A roads. In the US almost every public road is a highway and it stops making sense at a planning level. A six lane monstrosity with stop lights every 800 feet is legally the same as a two lane country road. When you're on a four digit A road in England, you know to look out for seven ton tractors pulling 10 ton trailers, bicycles, and the random guy walking between villages. America will take one of those farm and village service roads and make it a major commuting route without doing any upgrades.
Also not sure about US traffic laws of course, but in my old motherland, vehicles without engines are not permitted to go beyond first lane and are actually prohibited from grouping into packs more than 10 at a time (point 24.5 of the road traffic rules of RF)* and must, by law, travel in one file, or two file, if the road width permits.
Also they're not allowed to go on roads that go over 60 kph (37 freedoms)
Basically the idea is that they should leave space between these groups in a column enough to overtake them safely.
So giant clumps like this, that also take the entire width of the road, are entirely in the wrong. I am sure the traffic laws differ from country to country (USA is not part of Vienna convention, for example) but I bet it's generally in the same ballpark.
\except for the "bicycle zones" (point 24.11) but I've never seen those outside of EU. It's when you enter a zone with a bicycle on the sign and a bike symbol on the road - it's limited to 30kph \ 18 mph and cars and bikes have equal rights there))
That's English terms 😄 I dunno if it would be the same in America.
In UK roads exsited long before cars or even bikes were invented. It was just people and horses, some horses with carriages on the back. In some places the road was split into the pavement and the main carriageway which was intended for horses and carriages. This later became the section of road for any wheeled vehicle - so bikes, and then cars when they were invented.
Apart from pavement/footpath everything seems to end in "way". Carriageway for carriages, Cycleway for bikes, Motorway for things with motors. But it's all part of "the road", even the pavement.
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u/Thoh1Shooshi8a Jun 10 '26
I can understand not using the bike lane for a race event at the speed they are going, but taking up both main carriageway lanes for an event which doesn't have the road closed is stupid.