No Potholes in France

[old bell]

Last week I was cycling in Normandy and was amazed by the all but total lack of potholes. The roads were generally much smoother and therefore faster. Why can't it be like that here.
The highlight of my riding was over a suspension bridge. It was a giant new bridge over the Seine which had a special lane for bikes, with a good incline to the middle then a massive downhill to the end. I didn't have my Garmin but I was going as fast as the cars where the speed limit was 70kph

 

[Globalti]

Okay so here's a question for you: on the rare occasion when there are potholes in France they will put up a warning sign like this:

I've spent about four years of my life in France and I've never been sure whether this means:

"Holes forming"

or

"Holes in formation" i.e. a line along the road.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Okay so here's a question for you: on the rare occasion when there are potholes in France they will put up a warning sign like this:

I've spent about four years of my life in France and I've never been sure whether this means:

"Holes forming"

or

"Holes in formation" i.e. a line along the road.

Formation can also mean ''training'' so they could be just training holes.

 

[Globalti]

Oh God, no....!

 

[srw]

There are oodles and oodles of potholes in France - although for some reason they congregate in the towns, and the country roads seem to be much less favoured. There are two reasons why there are more in the UK. First, we have more traffic using most of our roads. Second, the French spend much more on road maintenance, and also do it better.

 

[DooDah]

There are oodles and oodles of potholes in France - although for some reason they congregate in the towns, and the country roads seem to be much less favoured. There are two reasons why there are more in the UK. First, we have more traffic using most of our roads. Second, the French spend much more on road maintenance, and also do it better.

In rural South-West France there are loads of potholes, but they do get filled in pretty quick. The French may spend much more on road maintenance, but they certainly don,t do it better, it is normally a very quick and cheap fix that has to be resurfaced year on year.

 

[s7ephanie]

No Potholes
They add at least 2km on my ride as i have to ride round them !! some are so big they even have their own postcode
and just get a load of stones thown in sometimes to fill them up
You SURE you was in France ?

 

[Candaules]

In my part of France (Charente) there are loads of potholes. The road to my house is barely passable by car, let alone bike. But some roads are mysteriously smooth. Local rumour suggests that your potholes are filled if you are a friend of the mayor.
When they do resurface, they use a special 'skim & scatter' technique: scraping a couple of millimeters of the surface off, then spreading a very thin layer of gravelly tar. The weeds usually break through in days.

 

[DWiggy]

Pot holes more like sink holes around here!

 

[DooDah]

Formation can also mean ''training'' so they could be just training holes.

Spoke to my French neighbour and he says that it means holes that are forming, but he joked that they will probably have been there for years. However, in our area we normally just get the uneven road sign, which normally means craters in the road

 

[djmc]

If you look at a road map, you will see that roads are numbered.
A33 - A motorway
N23 - a road funded from the state budget. These are usually busy.
D28 - A departmental road funded by the conseil général. These can be busy but often have very little traffic. The road surface is usually good.
C13 - A communal road funded by the local commune. These can be good but often aren't. The commune is the village or small town in the vicinity.
Roads in towns are often awful. They are funded locally and often the towns priority is to get traffic to slow down. An appalling road surface is a very efficient method of doing this.

 

[gavroche]

Okay so here's a question for you: on the rare occasion when there are potholes in France they will put up a warning sign like this:

I've spent about four years of my life in France and I've never been sure whether this means:

"Holes forming"

or

"Holes in formation" i.e. a line along the road.

The former.