Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Carl Fogel said:>>> Skip over the recumbents in this web site, they don't count as
>>> logistical vehicles.
http://aistigave.hit.bg/Logistics/
Quoted message said:>> Good grief! That's amazing stuff. I was particularly amused by
>> the guy carrying the car unibody on the front of his trike!
Quoted message said:> Don't overlook the nicely paved streets. They don't have
> republican roads over there as we do with potholes and cracks that
> can eat bicycles. Taxes are bad, public facilities need to be
> privatized.
Quoted message said:Er, the primary traffic in most of those pictures appears to be
bicycles:
http://aistigave.hit.bg/Logistics
Quoted message said:The whole point is that people are using bicycles and motorcycles to
move loads that we would normally carry in cars and trucks.
Quoted message said:Such roads tend to last longer than roads with heavy car and truck
traffic.
Oh! Is that why your favorite mine field has cracked eroded asphalt
and full of puncture vine, because it has heavy traffic? You might
try roads in (F), (D), (CH), (I), (SLO), (CRO), (NL),... and note that
theirs are without cracks and potholes, including mountain roads in
the Alps.
Jobst Brandt
Dear Jobst,
My bicycle path has cracked and eroded asphalt because it's a cheap
strip of shallow asphalt laid on notoriously bad soil, often with huge
cottonwoods next to it.
Soil in this area tends toward bentonite clay, which has a nasty habit
of expanding wildly when wet and breaking the foundations of homes and
university buildings.
The cottonwood roots have broken more expensive concrete slabs
intended to fix things.
I'll try to remember to take a few pictures of the path versus the
road to illustrate the difference. I'll also try to take a picture of
the larger cracks, which were filled with asphalt recently. It will be
interesting to see if the goatheads just grow up through the new
asphalt next year.
Regrettably, some new state parks employees decided to save time by
using a full-size garbage truck instead of a pickup truck to collect
the garbage from the trash cans, so some sections of the path have
been smashed--you've mentioned how ground squirrels like to burrow
under roads because it gives them a solid roof over their heads.
As a rule of thumb, when grass and puncture vine grow in the cracks in
the middle of a desert or prairie road, there ain't enough traffic to
worry about maintaining things.
Given that I see half a dozen pedestrians and bicyclists on the path,
it's reasonable for the county not to bother spending much on the
upkeep of a path that turns into a state park halfway to the dam.
To give some idea of how little used the path is, I stop in summer to
shoo rattlesnakes off it. This afternoon, I counted 11 deer on the
path in about a mile.
And to be honest, it works fine for a bicycle. For 15 miles, I use my
touring bike's brakes only for right-angle corners.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
Some pictures of my daily dreadful "mine-field".
***
Here's the worst that I can find, some up-buckled concrete about ten
years old:
http://server5.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=344a_path_broken_concrete.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/up6qp
The cottonwood casting the shadow across the path is the most likely
suspect, but to be fair, there's only one other spot like this in
about six miles. A metal sign, torn down for fun every month or two,
warns "Caution Trail Damage Ahead." Luckily, I ride up the river
toward the camera, so it's just a launching ramp, not the ugly
rim-wrecker seen from this angle, often camouflaged by shadows
and leaves (which I scraped away with my shoe, like a Playboy
photographer removing lingerie blocking the view).
***
Here's a more typical section of concrete path heading up the Arkansas
River valley, taken a week or so ago. The river is off in the trees.
http://server5.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=336a_yellow_leaves.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/yndrc4
This section of the path is smooth and favored by lizards in summer,
deer the year round, tarantulas in early fall, and recumbents in
spring. A section of the old asphalt path can be seen to the left. The
silvery-brown brush is mostly dead ragweed, the yellow-leaf tree is a
young cottonwood, and the blue mountains twenty miles away are about
9,000 to 10,000 feet high and about 4,000 to 5,000 feet in relief, the
lower and undistinguished northern end of the Wet Mountain range.
Here's a fall tarantula on that section of concrete:
http://server5.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=290atarantula.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/ydrtag
The close-up shows that the concrete is in good shape.
***
Here's an example of a recent spate of path repair, presumably
undertaken in September by a state government desperate to win my
vote:
http://server5.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=346a_patched_goathead_crack.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/y78spb
They just patched the biggest cracks across the asphalt path in the
state park. (Concrete means Pueblo city and county, asphalt means
Colorado state park leased from the federal government. A wooden
bridge divides the two political realms.)
Come spring, I'll find out if the goatheads that were growing in most
of the cracks can grow up through the asphalt patches like the one
across the bottom of the picture. The picture shows the beginning of a
prime section of goathead territory--note how the leaves make it even
more ridiculous to claim that the goatheads can be spotted and dodged.
***
Here's where a misguided maintenance crew ran a full-size garbage
truck down the path instead of the usual pickup truck:
http://server5.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=347a_patched_garbage_truck_tracks.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/y7ch47
The dual-wheel tracks lead to where the heavily loaded tires broke
through and destroyed a ground-squirrel den under the asphalt. Look
through the bike frame to see the handsome new black asphalt patch,
which replaced an orange safety cone after a few months.
Come to think of it, here's a picture of that safety cone:
http://server5.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=186a_safety_cone.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/suoff
That's what heavy traffic does to shallow-laid asphalt. No bicycle
will do that kind of damage.
***
Here's a low-angle view of the same section, showing the patch without
the bicycle in the way, with an example in the foreground of a plant
or root mound bursting up through the path:
http://server5.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=349a_alternate_view_of_patched_garbage_truck_tracks.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/y2dcum
I know what happened to cause the patch because I met the garbage
truck head-on that day a little further down the path, which was like
running into an elephant lumbering down the sidewalk.
***
Today, total traffic on this six-mile stretch of what's called a
nature trail on a sunny 54-degree fall afternoon around 3pm consisted
of me, two touring bikes, and two people out for a walk, one with a
dog. It's hard to blame the government for not worrying too much about
the state of 20-year-old asphalt and 10-year-old concrete. Average
speed for this section is a little over 20 mph.
Most of the damage is just the freeze-thaw cycle when summer
temperatures regularly reach 100F and winter temperatures drop to
-15F, coupled with roots growing into the path and soils that swell
when flooded. Bicycles and pedestrians do no more damage to the
asphalt and concrete out there than they do to the sidewalks in front
of homes.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
