How are your roads?

Khlash said:

How are the roads you ride? While watching the tour I was noticing how smooth most of the roads looked. Must be nice. Most of the roads I ride are full of gravel and horribly filled potholes. I sometimes worry about my wheels holding up. Please tell me Im not the only one!

I was using my full suspension MTB to commute to school because there was a section of road between home and school that was really awful. About a week ago the county resurfaced that road, so now I can go back to my hybrid commute bike.

I live in a rural area where there are plenty of gravel roads. Most of the paved roads don't have much traffic so there is a lot of really good riding to be done here.

TD

Khlash said:

How are the roads you ride? While watching the tour I was noticing how smooth most of the roads looked. Must be nice. Most of the roads I ride are full of gravel and horribly filled potholes. I sometimes worry about my wheels holding up. Please tell me Im not the only one!

ugh in nyc HORRIBLE
but out in PA its gorgeous...lots of nice farm roads...can even pick apples while you are riding!

In MD I get a mixture. Some roads are newly paved, and some are busted up sections of concrete with huge seams and gravel on each side. You have to watch out for potholes and sinkholes too, especially after a bad winter.

Remember that a lot of the roads the Tour rides are repaved expressly for them, just before the race (as in all the Grand Tours).

Around here the road quality varies - the maintenance is minimal; they let things get pretty potholed, then the just re-pave the whole thing!

Khlash said:

How are the roads you ride? While watching the tour I was noticing how smooth most of the roads looked. Must be nice. Most of the roads I ride are full of gravel and horribly filled potholes. I sometimes worry about my wheels holding up. Please tell me Im not the only one!

Pretty good roads just steep for the most part.

Khlash said:

How are the roads you ride? While watching the tour I was noticing how smooth most of the roads looked. Must be nice. Most of the roads I ride are full of gravel and horribly filled potholes. I sometimes worry about my wheels holding up. Please tell me Im not the only one!

The roads in Houston, TX are so incredibly bad I cannot see how anyone with a road bike or a racing bike rides here - but somehow they do. Years ago I had a road bike that I took on century rides all the time. My favorite was in and around some of the horse farms in Kentucky. Even the secondary roads there were well paved, and it was a blast to ride past the farms and see the varied types of fencing they had.

Cowboyathlete said:

The roads in Houston, TX are so incredibly bad I cannot see how anyone with a road bike or a racing bike rides here - but somehow they do. Years ago I had a road bike that I took on century rides all the time. My favorite was in and around some of the horse farms in Kentucky. Even the secondary roads there were well paved, and it was a blast to ride past the farms and see the varied types of fencing they had.

I live right in horse country in central KY. The secondary roads are beautiful, well maintained, and seldom traveled. Somewhat hilly, so you don't get bored. Potholes are extremely rare. One of my favorite routes passes a retired distillery (Old Taylor) and an active distillery (Woodford Reserve). You catch just a whiff of bourbon as you pass by.

Cowboyathlete said:

Years ago I had a road bike that I took on century rides all the time. My favorite was in and around some of the horse farms in Kentucky. Even the secondary roads there were well paved, and it was a blast to ride past the farms and see the varied types of fencing they had.

yea they do keep the backroads here in Ky in pretty good shape
I live South East of Lexington near the moutains and we have a lot of big hills
makes for short rides unless you into climbin 1000ft mts 🙂

some are a slow climb and some are steep
but atleast they roads arent in too bad shape

izzodesh said:

ugh in nyc HORRIBLE
but out in PA its gorgeous...lots of nice farm roads...can even pick apples while you are riding!

Don't catch any buckshot. 😄

The roads here are not bad. It's the drivers that you have to worry about. They keep yelling for you to ride on the sidewalk. What they don't realize is it's not legal to ride on the sidewalk.

There are some sections to ride which are paved and have no cars at all. I try to do most of my riding there.

TechJD said:

yea they do keep the backroads here in Ky in pretty good shape
I live South East of Lexington near the moutains and we have a lot of big hills
makes for short rides unless you into climbin 1000ft mts 🙂

some are a slow climb and some are steep
but atleast they roads arent in too bad shape

The ride I spoke of was called the Horsey Hundred, based out of Georgetown. Gently rolling hills, so not quite to the mountains.

Cowboyathlete said:

The ride I spoke of was called the Horsey Hundred, based out of Georgetown. Gently rolling hills, so not quite to the mountains.

Georgetown is about 80 or so miles north of me 🙂
it is pretty up there thought
but then the whole state is pretty

Cowboyathlete said:

The ride I spoke of was called the Horsey Hundred, based out of Georgetown. Gently rolling hills, so not quite to the mountains.

my bro lives in houston... and WOW
even his lowered car can barley make it there!
what gives?! why the horrible pot holes! u dont
even have snow!

Mine r so bad ma reflectors came off te bak of ma bike yesterday n i can tell u they were screwed on tight!

its a joke u look like one of them noddin dogs jus goin down the road

izzodesh said:

my bro lives in houston... and WOW
even his lowered car can barley make it there!
what gives?! why the horrible pot holes! u dont
even have snow!

Our so called public works department is in cahoots with all of the auto repair shops in town to keep the roads bad, if you ask me.

Khlash said:

How are the roads you ride? While watching the tour I was noticing how smooth most of the roads looked. Must be nice. Most of the roads I ride are full of gravel and horribly filled potholes. I sometimes worry about my wheels holding up. Please tell me Im not the only one!

I have good and bad roads in my area. I have simply learned what roads to avoid and life is good. 😉

Dan.

Khlash said:

How are the roads you ride? While watching the tour I was noticing how smooth most of the roads looked. Must be nice. Most of the roads I ride are full of gravel and horribly filled potholes. I sometimes worry about my wheels holding up. Please tell me Im not the only one!

[censored], ABSOLUTLY [censored]. THE ROADS IN THIS COUNTRY ARE [censored]. IF THE GOVERNMENT IN THIS COUNTRY WAS AS EAGER TO DO SOME PROPER WORK ON THE ROADS AS IT WAS TO LINE ITS POCKETS, IRELAND WOULD PROBABLY HAVE THE BEST ROADS IN EUROPE, IF NOT THE WORLD.
AS IT IS, THERE HAS BEEN SO MANY TRIBUNALS HAPPENING HERE WHICH HAVE IMPLICATED SO MANY OF THE TOP POLITICIANS IN THIS COUNTRY, IM SURPRISED THAT WE HAVE A COUNTRY LEFT TO RUN AT ALL. 😠

gntlmn said:

They keep yelling for you to ride on the sidewalk. What they don't realize is it's not legal to ride on the sidewalk.

It's always tough like that for cyclists. Drivers want you off the road, and pedestrians want you off the sidewalks. I say "Fine, build us some bike lanes". Oops! That costs money. Better get back to bickering.

Back to the roads thing, one of the counties I ride in has a particularly horrifying method to re-paving roads. They lay down a thin layer of tar, then dump gravel on top of it. Then they steamroll it. The idea is that years and years of vehicle traffic will pound the rocks down into the tar and make a good driving surface.

Problem 1: There's always some loose gravel, so for the first few years, it makes kind of nervous riding.

Problem 2: Since the surface is gravel (and sharp, angular rocks of gravel at that) stuck in place by the tar, if you DO go down, you're losing WAY more skin than if you go down on plain blacktop. It's also not a very smooth ride for a bike.

These roads are OK 5+ years after repaving, but if the repaving was recent, they're not good for bikes at all.

Here in New Orleans, the streets are abominable, and the drivers are even worse, but there's a bike path atop the Mississippi River levee that's 21+ miles of silky smooth asphalt, with no traffic other than other bikers and an occasional walker/jogger/rollerblader. Riding the length of it in a paceline going 25-30 mph is no problem (assuming you can keep up), and it's interesting to look at the ship and barge traffic passing by on the River, or to look over the rooftops of the neighborhoods on the land side. Since the levee meanders alongside the River, there's never a headwind for very long. I live 3 miles from the end of the path, and can add a 5-mile loop at the far end of it, so twice a week I manage to ride a bit more than 50 miles. Other days I ride a 20 or 25 mile loop, depending on how much time I've got.

There's also a nice 10-mile loop along the lakefront that includes a few gentle overpasses (we don't have real hills here) and is closed to traffic on weekends.

All in all, I'd say we were pretty lucky here.