Actually I was at the intersection with the nail incident. It was NOT intentional...but it also had the potential to be horrible. The issue is actually the intersection. It is the intersection of 11A and Belknap Mountain Road. Here is the intersection:
https://www.google.com/...3:0x8515fecc126ec77b My sister does the race and my step sister basically lives on the course. Every year we stand in the same place and every year it's just AWFUL! The police officers working the intersection really have no understanding of cycling. They don't seem to be good at judging how long it will take a rider to get to the intersection as they send cars across. They then send cars out in front with the riders swerving to avoid them. There was an additional officer there this year which maybe made it a little better. With riders coming up the hill on the way out for the bike it's one thing...but coming back to end the bike they are beginning to descend and speed is involved and it's just dangerous. Many years I've actually walked down the road because I just couldn't watch anymore. This year with riders coming up the hill and swerving around cars that the officer was letting out RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM I let the new officer to the corner know that THEY CAN'T DO THAT!! These athletes train so hard for this race and swerving to avoid being run over kind of puts a damper on things and can impact a riders mental mind set and overall race. Anyways...they probably just thought I was crazy. But shit actually did get crazy...
Fast forward to the riders coming back towards the end of the bike. So we are standing behind the guard rail because the way they have traffic backed up (someone must have been turning?) the only place for the riders to go was into the shoulder. Riders are starting to descend as they come to the intersection. There's a small opening and the police officers have the little old man 'GUN IT'. Most people that gun it out of the intersection are actually quite nervous. There are people on bikes and the drivers are suddenly going 20mph out of an intersection. Anyways...this older gentlemen in some type of truck guns it and out falls his bucket. At first I just see lots of little bits and I think "oh shit". I race my bike and understand the impact this could have. There was no place for the riders to pass through at this point. The ENTIRE lane was covered (maybe it was 2 buckets even?!). I immediately ran over and started clearing a path with my hands, sweeping away debris. At least trying to make some space for riders to get by. While doing this I realized not only was this bucket full of nails, but also thumb tacks and other sharp things! EEEK! An officer asked me to move out of the way and I ignored him and continued to clear a path and was able to send riders through this path as my family was telling them to slow down before coming upon the cluster F*!@. :-) After about 2 minutes I had a large enough area cleared so I didn't want my family to slow riders down anymore. My step sister had run and got a broom and another local spectator ran to the store for another broom to push the debris out of the road. HOLY SHIT. Just typing this stresses me out again. It was a complete accident but the outcome could have been horrible. I don't think the officers really understood this as I took over clearing the road immediately. (I think they were worried about me getting hit by a cyclist. But 100's of cyclists running over tacks and crashing on the descent would be much worse.) Anyways, the good news is the course was perfectly clear for my AWESOME sister to come through without slowing down and without running over any sharp objects!!
Please note that I'm sure the town does a wonderful job and the officers are doing the best they can, but it's really a logistics issue with the intersection.
Ways the intersection could be improved:
1. Close the side traffic
2. Change protocol for letting folks pull out into traffic. Have them roll down the window and have them ready to go when they are told. And make sure they care comfortable with doing so. Offer alternate routes.
3. Deal with the fact that for 1 hour as athletes funnel out of the water there will not be a break large enough in riders to send vehicles through. And then for about 2 hours as they funnel back down there will not be large enough breaks to safely send traffic through. If there happens to be a safe break in traffic and a car can go, that's one thing. But if it gets backed up and folks are waiting to long they can most likely seek and alternative route.
Suddenly criteriums seem a lot less stressful...
:-)