Sent to Gloucestershire Highways today...

[3narf]

A cynical comment but probably true.

I felt I had to make that point as they only understand stuff in financial terms. Lots of arab families stay in the lakeside holiday homes and hire bikes. It might be OK in the council's eyes to injure a local but they would rapidly regret a legal case from a Kuwaiti oil baron.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

The surface of the A6033 from Todmorden towards Littleborough has been appalling for years but for some reason they finally decided not only to fix it, but to fix it properly! A couple of kms is now pristine tarmac. It is wonderful to cycle on, but it makes such a contrast to the horrid surface either end of it and makes me yearn for more!

There's a road near me they've done the same thing to. They top dressed it with tar and stones at regular intervals for years, over the last twelve months its been that bad its been worse than a ploughed field, riding it was an adventure , lots of potholes to dodge. Then a few weeks ago they announced they were going to close the road and resurface it, its a major cross city route, and they actually did a proper job of it, scraped it back and gave it a nice smooth coat of tarmac, its lovely to both ride and drive now, before I was even dodging the worst of the potholes in the car.

 

[Globalti]

I felt I had to make that point as they only understand stuff in financial terms. Lots of arab families stay in the lakeside holiday homes and hire bikes. It might be OK in the council's eyes to injure a local but they would rapidly regret a legal case from a Kuwaiti oil baron.

No, that wouldn't happen because it's only in Britain and the USA where we have the blame culture and the authorities are nervous enough to pay attention to complaints. In the rest of the world people watch out for hazards and avoid them because they know nobody will care a damn. A bus crashes and 45 people die? Oh dear, it was an accident. A tanker explodes and incinerates 200? Terrible. A block of flats burns down and 50 die? Who owns the flats anyway? Some rich guy in London! My child is given fake drugs in hospital and dies? It was God's will. So your rich Arab visitor is likely to pick himself up and carry on, thinking there's no point in complaining.

 

[rugby bloke]

On a wet ride in the Surrey Hills the other week I was almost at the bottom of descent when I encountered a recently top dressed section, the combination of the speed of the bike, the wet and the top dressing made for an interesting couple of seconds ...

 

[Milkfloat]

This is Sunday's dance with top dressing, arrived at a junction that had been top dressed in the previous few days.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Ouch. I'll have to look out for that if I ever tour in the UK.

 

[Joffey]

Loads of that goes on in North Yorkshire - they surface dress perfectly fine roads and leave the damaged ones forever.

 

[rugby bloke]

This is Sunday's dance with top dressing, arrived at a junction that had been top dressed in the previous few days.

View attachment 472780

Ouch, Hope you are healing nicely.

 

[Globalti]

Loads of that goes on in North Yorkshire - they surface dress perfectly fine roads and leave the damaged ones forever.

As I wrote above, Highways engineers are obsessed with skid resistance so they will top dress any road that looks a bit bald and shiny, even if it's ful of potholes. It's a quick and nasty way of improving the adhesion and hopefully waterproofing the surface to prevent freeze-thaw from breaking it up next winter.

 

[C R]

This is Sunday's dance with top dressing, arrived at a junction that had been top dressed in the previous few days.

View attachment 472780

Ouch, I was lucky and managed to stay upright. I just noticed this morning that they have top dressed one of my usual routes in the last couple of days, it looks like there is at least 2 cm of loose gravel all over the surface, totally unrideable.

 

[C R]

As I wrote above, Highways engineers are obsessed with skid resistance so they will top dress any road that looks a bit bald and shiny, even if it's ful of potholes. It's a quick and nasty way of improving the adhesion and hopefully waterproofing the surface to prevent freeze-thaw from breaking it up next winter.

But it increases the skid risk monumentally for a few weeks after!

 

[PK99]

Yawn. Same thead, same comments every year....

 

[C R]

Yawn. Same thead, same comments every year....

My excuse is that I am new here

 

[Globalti]

But it increases the skid risk monumentally for a few weeks after!

That's why they always put up an advisory speed limit; they don't want idiot motorists scrubbing off the dressing before the tar emulsion has dried and passing cars have compacted the granite chips into the old surface.

 

[Paulus]

Same in Worcs. I nearly came off a few weeks ago in one of the gravel accumulations that were left after the dressing.

Same here in Herts. Piles of chippings thrown up by vehicles, and a week or so later piles of chippings on the edge of the road. Cheap and nasty.