Increasingly crap loose road surfacing

[Davemc37]

I’m sure I’m not the only person suffering from this but the council has laid a lot of road surfaces round my way in Brentwood Essex using lots of stone chips which are meant to improve grip.

The reality is somewhat different though as most roads have got two tracks worn into them where car tyres travel which then deposits lots of loose gravel to the side of the tyre tracks. I’ve felt my bike slipping quite a lot on these roads. This is particularly noticeable around corners and junctions where there can often be big piles of loose stones waiting to trap any unwary bikers or cyclists.

I reckon I have to shave a good 10 to 20 mph off my speed when approaching corners compared to a proper tarmac road. Horrible stuff.

So is it worth complaining or is that likely to just get me even more frustrated. Is there any organisation that might help lend a bit of weight to any complaint.
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born again biker with a mere 23 year gap between bikes.

[Rogerborg]

Crash, die, we'll set up a memorial fiting fund.

We were just having a moan about this in the Scotchland forum. Our roads are particularly rekt at the moment: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-43407167

It's just patches on patches on patches, which rapidly break up into pebbles, when they haven't just slung loads of it down deliberately. Go even slightly off line and you're on a flood plain of pain.

I've been driving for $CONSIDERABLE years, and I've never seen anything like it. It seems that I'm either creeping round roundabouts with cars up my chuff, or standing on the pegs, or sometimes just feet-down paddling (don't tell Tef) over roads like the surface of the moon.

Even if there was the budget to fix this, I don't think we have the man[*]-power to do it in during our 2 months of summer.

Wut do? I honestly have no idea. We're giving away £12 billion every year to despots and nuclear space powers, while our roads degrade to 3rd world standard. It's truly deranged.

[*] I'll correct this to "person" when I see a wamen out working on the roads at 7am in a howlingn gale, anywhere, ever.
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Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike

[Itchy]

[Dave70]

My route to work, along with many other local roads round here, has become so bad and unsafe that I'm actually seriously considering getting a car licence and giving up biking.
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There ain't no devil, there's just god when he's drunk.

2012: R125 killed by white van. 2016 R125 killed by 30,000 miles of redline. Current: 2016 Kawasaki ER6f.

[weasley]

[Itchy]

[Nobby the Bastard]

I thought it was more to put a sacrificial layer on the road thats cheap to replace than to increase grip.
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[Dave70]

[Itchy]

[fireyphoenix1...]

Shell grip is fine media, massively increases grip but its expensive and increases road noise massively so you dont see it a lot.Shame really as one of my local roundabouts has shell grip on it and you can properly corner on it even in winter.

Loads of roads in the fylde area have been resurfaced with this tar and gravel shit however leaving cars to bed it in.Three of my favorite routes are now shit, no grip pieces of loose stones damaging cars and bikes plus a sharp increase in accidents this winter.The reasoning is its cheap...but it isnt is it as a year later and half the roads are fucked again because as soon as you get ice this loose shit breaks up causing pot holes all over the place.

Do the council care, do they fuck.

Some prick also just decided it would be genius to lay smooth cob stone over the two busiest junctions and roundabout in the town center. More than 30 crashes in 12 months, soon as it rains its like driving on ice.
I think they want to make the town like parts of Manchester and pedestrianize it, but dont seem to understand if they do that people just wont bother.
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2014 Aprillia dorsoduro 750 factory.

[Moo.]

[Nobby the Bastard]

What pisses me off about shell grip is you get halfway round the roundabout past the completely unnecessary traffic lights and it promptly disappears....
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[Rogerborg]

[trevor saxe-coburg-gotha]

My local roads (York-ish / Hull-ish) have suffered badly this winter. It hasn't been the coldest winter as such - but there's definitely been an elongated period (I want to say 6 weeks, could be 8) where the night temps were minus one or lower. Not cold as such - but eight weeks of daily contraction and expansion (not to mention a shitload of rain) has damaged the roads more than any other winter I can remember. Said on local news the other day, region needs a billion quid spending on repairs. Like that'll happen.
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"Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent."

Mobylette Type 50 ---> Raleigh Grifter ---> Neval Minsk 125

[fireyphoenix1...]

Just another reason why im not on a sports bike anymore, you need something supermoto style to handle the craters at this rate !.
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2014 Aprillia dorsoduro 750 factory.

[kgm]

[Rogerborg]

[Ste]

Yes, if you report too many things to your council then they stop accepting reports from fixmystreet.com

"Wiltshire Council doesn’t accept reports from third party reporting sites such as FixMyStreet.

We can make your report public, but we can’t send it to the council."

Luckily Wiltshire Council made their own app so it's easier than ever to report stuff to them. I particularly like that they've got a function for reporting unlicensed waste collectors aka facebook people offering cheap waste disposal.

[AshWebster]

literally every road in st annes is full of massive potholes and/or gravel still dug up from those potholes.. it's getting a joke even in my "comfy" merc.

add on to that up to poulton (without warning) round a corner there is suddenly a change in the road surface to this loose gravel shit (which i think OP is referring to). If i was on the bike id've been off 100%. Its not even a temporary surface! How can they get away with it?

edit: Dragons Den a pothole fix idea/engineering methos cheaper than what councils originally pay.. please... anyone...
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Ford KA ---> 93' MR2 ---> 94'MR2 ---> 98' Subaru WRX STI Ver 3 (track car)

[Itchy]

[Skudd]

Just a good road sweeping would help. All the debris that is left helps grind at the defects in the road and cause or increase the pot holes and the rest of the surface be worn away.
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Petty Anarchists look at "1984".............. The Visionary looks at "Animal Farm".

[BLB_Rich]

Whenever I go over to Surrey I notice how appalling the roads are...

There are distinct grooves on the carriageway where vehicles go; the second you stray off the centre line to take a corner (to the outside to see the corner exit) the uneven road surface throws your handlebars/balance complete off and you're fighting the bike to stay on the road!

There are countless roads where there are deep uneven grooves ingrained into the road surface from when the tarmac was put down and graded which totally throw the natural travel of the tyres on the road!

My home county of Sussex is slightly better. They will resurface roads with tarmac but in a rushed job.

[MCN]

Potholes.

The whole (no pun) deal is down to road construction.

They are designed and built to a budget.

Govdotcom control this.

We pay, they say.

Time constraints and the habit of building roads using Tarmacadam during cold wet months are inconducive. Tar diznae like cold wet.

Roads are (can and should be) built to a carefully calculated formula to carry a volume and weight of traffic.

Pot holes are the direct result of cheap-cost-cutting-short-term-council-decision-making.

POLITICIANS ARE TO BLAME.

The fcuking Romans invented/developed road building and brought their system to Britain in 55BC (before they fuckedus Offidus circa 410AD).
They left and took their invention with them. (Seems like.)
The Britains learned nothing from the alien life form.
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Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.

[fireyphoenix1...]

[ThatDippyTwat]

Sad thing is, you get to know exactly where the holes, and the debris build up from it, are on a commute or other frequently used route. In the same way you know which manhole covers are uneven, sunken, slippy etc. There are sections around here where you have to go into the debris line cars have made to avoid your front wheel doing an Evel Knevil into the pothole that produced the debris pile. There's one on the way to work, right on the wheel line you have to ride in to avoid the frequently replenished slippy farm mud, and it's getting bigger all the time.

The notable one being one of the busiest roundabouts in town. They've slapped a bumpy, uneven patch on it on Tuesday (this must be the 5th time they've patched it this winter), and it's already knackered. They still haven't bothered sending a sweeper around the thing, so I'll be negotiating the slalom it creates again in about 1/2 hour.
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'98 VFR800 (touring) - '12 VFR800 Crosrunner (Commuting) - '01 KDX220 (Big Green Antisocial Machine)