Top dressing

[DaveReading]

I know it's a cheap, cost-effective way of resurfacing a road, but I was cursing it this afternoon. I know it works on the principle that (eventually) the passage of traffic will compact and harden it, but when it's only been down for a couple of days few, if any, cars have driven along the metre of so of road at the edge, where I would normally ride.

OK, most drivers appreciate why you are riding further out that usual, but you still get the odd d*ckh**d who thinks you should be skidding around in the fresh stuff just because that's what they have to do.

 

[ClichéGuevara]

It's probably a worrying sign of how my mind functions, but when I hear talk of road dressing, I picture navvies putting little shoes and dresses on asphalt, but I digress.

A few years back when they started to dress roads more than they had previously, I contacted the highways people and suggested that, as they now seem to expect me to do some of the work of their road roller, I should be eligible for a share of his wages.

They seemed to think I was joking, or bonkers. Had to be worth a try...didn't it?

 

[Saluki]

Our local council seems to have gone mad with it just lately. I nearly came off my bike today because of some. I'm riding on some different roads at the mo to avoid the regular ones that have just been top dressed.

 

[slowmotion]

The newly strewn stuff is an absolute nightmare on a bike, like riding on ice. We came across some on a Brighton FNRttC a year ago, just before Ditchling. A white knuckle ride. Horrid.

 

[ColinJ]

I was thinking about this subject on my ride today. I encountered some very rough chip and seal surfaces which were horrid to ride, and then suddenly came across about a mile of pristine tarmac which was a delight. Oh, if only all our roads were like that!

 

[bikeman66]

I know it's a cheap, cost-effective way of resurfacing a road, but I was cursing it this afternoon. I know it works on the principle that (eventually) the passage of traffic will compact and harden it, but when it's only been down for a couple of days few, if any, cars have driven along the metre of so of road at the edge, where I would normally ride.

OK, most drivers appreciate why you are riding further out that usual, but you still get the odd d*ckh**d who thinks you should be skidding around in the fresh stuff just because that's what they have to do.

Living on the Isle of Wight, where the highways are notoriously bad, I'm actually overjoyed to see massive amounts of the black stuff being laid (apart from the last week or so, when they've been planing and surfacing right outside our house during the night). There is a 25 year programme to upgrade the highways over here, which is quite well underway. So I'm really looking forward to being able to do a 35-40 mile ride without having to dodge man eating potholes!

I have to say that I usually find the new surfaces tacky rather than slippery, but agree that a week or so of vehicles compacting it does make for a joyously smooth ride. If the contractors are using diesel as a release agent to get the Tarmac to slide out of the truck more easily (which is well out of order these days) then that would make for a more slippery surface

On balance, I'll take the odd tacky section, the odd slippery section and the need to clean the odd tar spot off the bike in preference to a fortnightly trip to the LBS for wheel truing!

 

[jefmcg]

@bikeman66 that's what we all want.

Top dressing is where they spray the road with a thin layer of tar, and spread fine gravel over it. You'll know it by the "loose chippings" and "20 mph" and "<windscreen broken icon>" signs. It's basically riding over gravel for a week or two, combined with risking losing an eye as cars go by ignoring temporary speed limit.

Resurfacing, as you describe, is the holy grail.

Edit: they have mostly been doing resurfacing around me recently, so I shouldn't complain too much.

 

[mjr]

Our local council seems to have gone mad with it just lately. I nearly came off my bike today because of some. I'm riding on some different roads at the mo to avoid the regular ones that have just been top dressed.

Please report it on www.fixmystreet.com with the word "dangerous" in the report.. Then if someone does crash, they can at least prove the council were warned and failed to fix it.

Norfolk is using much more chippings than before, resulting in dangerous moraines over an inch thick. County council passes the Buck to its contractors.

 

[ClichéGuevara]

I reckon Trading Standards should be tackling them about the signs they use. How can the put a sign up saying 'road works', when it clearly doesn't?

 

[Cuchilo]

Top dressing is horrible stuff . I thought we where getting lucky around here as all the roads seem to have been done properly but heading out to box hill and going out the other side I hit a big patch of this stuff ( on the downhill ) Then I noticed signs warning that it was going to be happening all over that area .

 

[Steady]

I was thinking about this subject on my ride today. I encountered some very rough chip and seal surfaces which were horrid to ride, and then suddenly came across about a mile of pristine tarmac which was a delight. Oh, if only all our roads were like that!

I've found this myself, my local council is cheap, tight barely manages to get the right contractors for any council project, and then always overspend and run into delays etc.

A lot of surface dressing near me recently and then I cross over into a different council District it's almost a moment accompanied by a choir, smooth tarmac the length of a road, not just the bits that needed doing the whole of the road that was previously very worn.

I felt like writing up and highlighting this road. But I'm so impressed by the smoothness of the road, the quality that it might just come across that I've got an unusual obsession with road surfaces.

 

[Eribiste]

Worcestershire Highways keep doing this to us as well. There's no road repair going on; all the broken bits of road are still there, just hidden by a layer of tar and a pile of chippings. It wasn't good enough in the twentieth century and it's downright barbaric in the twenty-first. The council even have the gall to take full page adverts in the press to trot out the mendacious dogma about how 'good' the practice is.

 

[Globalti]

If you read up on top dressing you'll learn a couple of things:

1 - That highways engineers are obesssively paranoid about skid resistance, which is why they do it.

2 - That top dressing is not laid on tar; it's laid on an emulsion of tar, which is quite difficult to get right and has to be allowed to cool and dry. When it isn't right, the top dressing eventually comes off in areas, which creates the uneven surface with which we are all sadly familiar.

 

[summerdays]

Our local council seems to have gone mad with it just lately. I nearly came off my bike today because of some. I'm riding on some different roads at the mo to avoid the regular ones that have just been top dressed.

I tried taking different routes only to find they had top dressed those ones too. And on a hill it isn't very nice!

 

[Supersuperleeds]

It seems like every other road around here is being top dressed at the moment.