Murder Death Grey Grit Road Resurfacing...

[NutsyUk]

Just a little rant, but anyone else who lives in rural areas getting exceptionally fedup with local councils resurfacing the road with this horrific death trap grey gravel grit shit?

Every time I see a patch I have to drop down to about 20-30mph for fear of a slight bend in the road might make me skid out... Which is more irritating when I end up getting a car behind me with there lovely 4 wheels of contract traction to protect them.

Lately so many roads around here have been surfaced with this stuff...

Just aagaggghhh!
____________________
Yamaha FZ8/Fazer800 (split headlight one) 2014, gingerly getting used to the massive increase in HP and not killing myself in the process! That was easy to get used to.
Kawasaki ER6F 2007 650 Gonna sell as a project bike!
Lexmoto XTR S 125 Sold!

[hellkat]

You wanna try riding in NZ, mate.
Look at this lovely bit of road.

Go on, head north a bit, look how nice it looks, run your hand over its smooth curves and think about how you would ride your bike like a bitch on a road like that.
Good tarmac, nice sweeping hill.
Top of the South Island in NZ.
Fantastic riding, the whole country.

But the way they do roads down there is to take that nice layer of tarmac off for about two miles, and then cover it in 6 inches deep of gravel, THEN they stand around on their shovels for a day or two, and then they tar and steamroller it all flat again, trust me: you DO NOT want to be spending much time on a road like that when its been turned into 2 miles of downhill gravel.
____________________
Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[NutsyUk]

pretty... and scary
____________________
Yamaha FZ8/Fazer800 (split headlight one) 2014, gingerly getting used to the massive increase in HP and not killing myself in the process! That was easy to get used to.
Kawasaki ER6F 2007 650 Gonna sell as a project bike!
Lexmoto XTR S 125 Sold!

[hellkat]

And then, if you wanna find the nicest beaches...

The ones that are hidden away and are just beautiful little havens of peace and quiet and blue sea/blue sky ... you have to go to the end of the tarmac roads, and then wobble down hill (for it is almost ALWAYS downhill to the beach in NZ) on what is affectionately known as a "metal" road until you arrive at your destination, so shattered and freaked out that all you can do is sit at the edge of the water and go "Wha?" for an hour or two.
____________________
Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[NutsyUk]

[chickenstrip]

[stinkwheel]

And yet, nobody ever seems to actually fall off on it.

Before someone posts it, there was a picture doing the rounds on social media a while back of a BMW down on the stuff but it had clearly been laid down for the benefit of the camera (they even had the pannier on a drain lid so as not to damage the finish).
____________________
“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[yen_powell]

Try a few days of green laning and then the gravel won't ever worry you again, in fact it will seem like grip heaven, you might even start to enjoy it.

My main worry on that stuff is losing a headlight from a stone thrown up, headlight protect required.
____________________
Blackmail is a nasty word........but not as nasty as phlegm!
XT1200Z and a DR350 in bits

[doggone]

It all settles down after a couple of weeks, the problem is they can only do it in half decent warm dry conditions, so it tends to coincide with nice riding weather.

[MCN]

Or the alternative would be increase taxes to pay for a more intense re-surfacing process.
Or don't bother resurfacing and take our chances on roads that have lost the grippy function.

It's a recognised method to restore the protective wear and friction surface.
The issue is that some councils apply, leave a few days to allow traffic to set the aggregate, then Vaccu-Loader truck it up (for the next project) and some don't. It could be a funding matter.
Road repair have to be made to certain agreed standards. Deviation can be expensive for contractors.

Roads are built to design.
The spec relies on projected usage.
They also have a lifetime and maintenance routine for the duration of life.
If usage dramatically changes then original design spec may not be up to the extra load.

Frequency of traffic, weight of traffic and costs of maintenance (depending on location distance from quarries, cost of equipment and materials etc.)

Roads are more fascinating than meets the road.
____________________
Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.

[hellkat]

[hellkat]

[Poseidon]

[Nobby the Bastard]

This is why I think linked brakes without abs is such a stupid idea.

On a surface like that I would only want to be using the rear and linked brakes prevent that.
____________________
trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Triumph Sprint ST 1050

[stinkwheel]

[Nobby the Bastard]

Is that with tyres that are made for the job? Normal road tyres for anything dedicated to the road dont have anything approaching grip on loose surfaces and I'd rather plan ahead and remain in a situation when the back brake will provide enough braking than risk locking the front.
____________________
trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Triumph Sprint ST 1050

[Bhud]

A couple of years ago, there was a blitz attack of loose gravel repairs on the roads around my way. I have a couple of problems with it: it seems cheap and half-assed (some of those roads require serious repair as there were potholes the size of craters), and it's not great for tyres (you find bits of gravel in the tread which you have to dig out before they get deeper, and it increases wear rates)

Riding on it didn't seem to be a huge problem as long as it was the thin stuff (i.e. most of it), as long as I allowed for greater braking distances and was smooth on the throttle during overtakes. I could make fairly reasonable progress on it, but I also greatly reduced my lean angle on bends. I did spot a number of riders going unreasonably slowly (e.g. 20 in a new 40) over the stuff, even after a couple of weeks, which led me to believe it was mostly psychological. While you could ride on it, you couldn't ride hard on it. Dual mode thing in the brain. No huge problems, but slight problems when pulling out from stationary from a T-junction onto a fast, busy road - this caused the rear to slip a lot despite doing it slowly. All slips almost immediately regain traction, though.

[MCN]

[stinkwheel]

They put signs up recommending a maximum 20mph speed limit when they put chippings down... Just saying.
____________________
“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Amber Phoenix]

[chickenstrip]

[chickenstrip]

[spottedtango]