Thread Archive > STAR 2021
STAR 2021 Routes Website is online!
Ride4MS:
We have been to only Springdale, Colorado Springs, La Crosse and Bristol for STARs. We did not have those problems at any of those locations. Maybe it would be good to ask the people that designed those routes what they used.
We rode two or three of the routes on our own at Springdale and were very easy to follow. On others we followed, but the map was accurate as we had it in the tank bag to read to see where we were going. I remember commenting as I looked at the map, and saying that across the Holler is a road that we will be on shortly.
The routes that I made for La Crosse, I didn't make all of them, were done with bing.com/maps and then typed out like in my previous attachment. I did not drive the routes to verify, but spent a lot of time analyzing them on the computer. More work, but well worth it.
Patmo:
I’ve gotten through the first 4 routes now and here’s an observation….
It looks to me that the routes are relying on the use of small County Roads for much of their length, instead of using primarily State Routes.
I can’t say for sure what all of the others did in the past, but I do know that for the two STAR events held in Lexington, KY the routes were almost exclusively made up of State Routes.
Kentucky uses a number designation that works like this….the larger the road, the fewer the numbers. So for example, a route with 1-2 numbers would tend to be a more heavily driven road than one with 4 digits. (SR 32 v SR1054). The smallest of roads (many just 1 lane or 1 1/2 lanes wide) would generally have only a name. We didn’t use those roads except on a couple of the routes for a few miles.
In WV, it seems that the State Routes are all the 1-2 digit roads, and beyond that we have County Road numbers. (SR-7 v CR-7). I can’t say for sure, but I’m betting that the road signs for the county roads will either not have the County Road # on them or will only have it written very small, and will instead have the Road Name on them.
Only time will tell.
Probably a good idea to pick up a DeLome Gazetteer for West Virginia if you’re going to rely on maps and not GPS to follow the routes.
stevegrab:
Pat that is definitely out of the norm in my years of experience attending club events and following routes. Certainly going back to the pre GPS days it was all more main roads, and even after use of GPS was common most routes were still primarily state and US highways.
I would hope that these less major roads have been ridden to some extent to be sure of the road quality (ripped up pavement, gravel, etc) and that they are not of the famous "WV road" variety where its one lane of pavement down the middle, with a half lane of gravel on each side. (First time I encountered one the oncoming pickup thought they owned the paved portion and expected me to give up my half lane and ride in gravel. Kind of unnerving to say the least.)
I will definitely be doing some detailed review of these routes to see what they contain.
Patmo:
I’ve finished almost all of the routes now and I’ve found something else of interest….
Is seems that the County Roads are repeated in each county. So you can be riding along on CR-1, cross the county line, and it suddenly becomes CR-6….AND in some cases, the NAME changes too……travel a little further and have to turn back onto a road designated CR-1, with a totally different name, but it’s CR-1 for a different county than the former CR-1.
Also…keep in mind that because of the location of the resort, roads going east can easily run into Virginia, and ones running north can run into Maryland. That can result in a State Route number change.
All this SOUNDS very confusing, but really it’s not when put into actual practice. MANY of the routes, especially those running south of the resort, really rely on State Routes for all, or mostly all, of their roads. A lot of the CR usage is in order to get from one state route to another, or to take you to a state park or other destination. If you don’t have a GPS, there are still many of the routes that you’ll be able to run pretty easily. Just spend some time prior to getting there looking at them with a state map besides you, and you’ll be able to figure them out pretty easily. There are only so many main roads running through the state and all of the routes use some of them.
One additional piece of advice…..when heading out into rural mountain country, don’t rely on their being lots of gas stations everywhere, there aren’t. Norm’s routes have gas stops written into them, but it’s never a bad idea to gas up whenever you have a chance.
stevegrab:
Thanks for the additional info Pat. That situation with county roads is the same in Ohio, each county has their own set of numbered roads. Most times I am using the county roads to link up my favorite pieces of state highways so I'm not often on them long enough to transition to a new county and see the number or name change. But they can be more difficult to follow visually (not labeled as well).
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