Road surface dressing rubbish

[youngoldbloke]

It's called top dressing and I also don't know why councils are doing it.

Also Surface Dressing My link
Usually sometime before the work begins you will see yellow marks sprayed on the tarmac by the council highways department - lines, job numbers and the dreaded initials SD, indicating that the road will soon be made very unpleasant for cycling. Be warned and enjoy smooth tarmac while you can.

 

[tyred]

Virtually all roads around here are done like that and always have been. In a few weeks, it's just as bumpy as it was before and an when freshly done, it's a nightmare on bike or car. It's why I favour wide tyres and mudguards, even on my road bikes.

 

[Globalti]

Blimey Youngoldbloke, I never dreamed there was so much to know about top dressing!

Interesting bit where he calculates the load from the tyre of a heavy truck: EACH SQUARE CENTIMETRE OF SURFACE DRESSING IS SUBJECT TO A FORCE OF APPROX. 5.5KGS.

.....I wonder how that compares with the weight of a cyclist of say 75 kilos on two 23mm tyres? The contact area can't be more than a couple of square cms.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

It's called top dressing and I also don't know why councils are doing it.

Random idea, but does it give cars more traction in ice and snow?

 

[oliglynn]

[QUOTE 1520426"]
They see it as a cheaper alternative to doing it properly.
[/quote]

The council have been replacing so many roads round my way with this shite. Makes them unridable for weeks until enough vehicles have smoothed it off. Ever come across it freshly laid, and your tyres will just get destroyed.

I've had enough of this. Whatever happened to doing a proper tarmac job!??!?

 

[henshaw11]

>more traction in ice and snow?

I'm not aware that it does - as mentioned, it's done to lengthen the life of the existing surface - the irony is that (IIRC) it's done when the surface is already in decent condition, rather than used to repair a poor surface.

There's sections of my commute that have been done recently (tho' at least the non-optional section nearest work was done whilst I was on holiday !)...'couse, it's a complete concidence that in 3 yrs I get one puncture, and I've had two in ~6 weeks of riding (both small flints)

From that link:

BUT It has to be said the best way of rolling/compacting/orientating the applied chippings into the sprayed binder/road surface is to use the action of traffic.
This is done by keeping the traffic speed low and by using cones to move the traffic across the complete width of the road. Sometimes it is necessary to use a slow moving "lead''

(my italics)

Huh - that'd be nice if it happened...one long section - wide enough for a half decent cyclepath - was redone, left for few weeks but the areas consolidated reached *just* about as far as the cyclepath lining. If they've left it a month longer with stuck cones along the middle of the road before they relined itm that might have helped a lot. Only relatively tho, secondary/lh tyre tracks still pretty damn rough.

Meanwhile at one end where it finishes - as it hits a 30 zone - the 80ft or so of previously top-dressed surface is coming away, looks like there's no intention of repairing it, and its like riding on rubble...

<edit> - that guy's even provided a very similar example :
http://www.highwaysmaintenance.com/JPEGfailSD.htm

 

[TheSandwichMonster]

Just as bad is when you have a road that has previously been surfaced like this, but has been left for years and has most of the "surface" come away in chunks. I've got a section like this on my long commute and it it's an absolute-piggin-beast to ride up. That's without mentioning the additional risk that comes from having to be ultra-aware of traffic for when you have to dodge the particularly bad holes.

 

[Wades]

Just as bad is when you have a road that has previously been surfaced like this, but has been left for years and has most of the "surface" come away in chunks. I've got a section like this on my long commute and it it's an absolute-piggin-beast to ride up. That's without mentioning the additional risk that comes from having to be ultra-aware of traffic for when you have to dodge the particularly bad holes.

I've ridden on a few like this and know exactly what you mean. There's a couple of roads I know that were also about 6 months ago. 90% of the gravel has trodden in but there are a couple of fast corners (that I forget about almost every time) that still have a lot of loose stuff on them. It's like ridding on marbles!

So glad i'm not alone in my dislike of this stuff!

 

[Rebel Ian]

Yes it's bad on a bike but you want to try hitting a patch of that on a motorbike. That's no fun I can assure you.

 

[henshaw11]

It's not just the stuff in the road. Another section that was done last year - but has actually bedded in relatively well - has a shared usage path next to the dual carriageway, which I use in the morning 'cos its saves a detour to get onto the correct side, and on dark evenings since it's an unlit/fast road.

All the crap from the last lot of top dressing still hasn't been swept away off the shared path - might even be the reason for one of the recent punctures..

 

[Holdsworth]

They did this to a road which I commute to work on. For some reason they felt the need to spread this gravel stuff when the road surface was smooth tarmac, less than two months old and in perfect condition!

 

[soulful dog]

They've put this stuff on a couple of roads near me. One is a rarely used back road that was done at least a year ago. you used to be able to spot the bumps and avoid them, now it all looks the same so you can't avoid the bumps - which aren't much different to how they were prior to being 'dressed'....

The other road is the much busier Edinburgh Road in Glasgow. A strange one for them to do. It's a 3-lane dual carriageway and only the inside (bus) lane was really in need of any repair. A couple of months ago they re-surfaced numerous stretches of the bus lane along a 2-mile section of it in both directions, and it made a nice difference to the road. However, a few weeks later they came back and added a surface dressing.... there's not too many bumps due to the work they'd carried out beforehand, but it's not much fun to cycle along.

It's started to bed in now, but during the first week or so the driver of a van who ignored the 20mph skid risk speed limit also didn't find it much fun either. He was lucky though, he ended up almost in the hedge to the left just after the traffic lights, fortunately he missed the street light and trees.

 

[Glover Fan]

The worst part for me in my area, is that the council do this on lanes that are designated routes on the NCN. Surely this has to be taken into consideration when planning resurfacing. I haven't yet received a response from South Gloucestershire council as to why they choose to Surface Dress on cycle routes. It is dangerous.

 

[MissTillyFlop]

It's infuriating.

Lambeth council won't fill a pothole until it is 4cm deep, which is annoying enough, but when they did fix it, they covered the road in this crap - at least you can go around a pothole...

 

[youngoldbloke]

The worst part for me in my area, is that the council do this on lanes that are designated routes on the NCN. Surely this has to be taken into consideration when planning resurfacing. I haven't yet received a response from South Gloucestershire council as to why they choose to Surface Dress on cycle routes. It is dangerous.

I think it illustrates a total lack of understanding of the needs of cyclists. It is hard to imagine that there is anyone employed in the relevant council departments that has any knowledge or experience of riding any bike - let alone a road bike. It seems to be assumed that 'cycling' means riding a mountain bike with knobbly tyres - otherwise how can you account for the condition of many cycle routes? I would be very interested to see the council's response.