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Roads rant!
Jules
Posts: 987
in General Chat
Went out this morning on my new road bike, did a little circuit that I've done before on my old hybrid bike.
I knew there were potholes before, but goodness me I felt them this morning!
Is it beyond the skills of people who repair roads, lay cables etc to make the new tarmac vaguely level with the surrounding road?! I'm not talking about some little back road either, this is an A road, the main route into town from the motorway.
Perhaps I should take the road bike back and swap it for a full suspension MTB.
Sorry, rant over now!
I knew there were potholes before, but goodness me I felt them this morning!
Is it beyond the skills of people who repair roads, lay cables etc to make the new tarmac vaguely level with the surrounding road?! I'm not talking about some little back road either, this is an A road, the main route into town from the motorway.
Perhaps I should take the road bike back and swap it for a full suspension MTB.
Sorry, rant over now!
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First, because they get filled with car debris - glass, tyre fragments, broken bits of bumper, mirror, etc, because they don't get used enough to keep them clear and because they're never swept, and road sweepers sweep all the crap straight into the cycle lanes!
Secondly because they're unsuitable for doing a sensible speed due to the number of junctions and sharp corners. It's probably fine at ten miles per hour, but not at 18.
Thanks, I'll mix it with the cars.
Is it worth checking out your local council website, ours has a 'Pothole hotline' type thing where you can report hazards & in general they do come & sort them out, if not then let your local councillor know..his or her job may depend on it come next May.
I've had several holes filled in recently! [;)]
Also a useful technique to take the sting out of the cattle grids down 'ere in the New Forest. Bzzzzt!
a. Missing manhole covers. In the middle and edge of main roads it is quite normal to find missing manhole covers that are left for several weeks before being replaced - every so often a car hits one and breaks an axle. I hate to think what would happen if a bike went in one.
b. No cycle lanes. None at all. Not even little pointless strips of green painted road at the edge of the main drag.
c. Potholes that often take up more of the road surface than the tarmac islands that are left behind.
d. Roads with only three lanes where five or six cars will routinely travel abreast.
e. Cars without seatbelts, mirrors, or any basic safety features, driven in a manner that suggests safety was never an important consideration in the first place.
f. An almost complete absence of bicycles or motorbikes, meaning that nobody expects or allows for a bicyclist - "might is right" is the order of the day here, and a bicycle has less might than anything else on the road - even the 30 year old ladas.
I think I stand a good chance of winning this one! Unfortunately, it's meant that my road bike never sees the light of day and is waiting for me back in the UK, and that my only cycling is off road on the MTB [:(]
p.s. It's Azerbaijan
p.s. the attached photo is of the sort of overloaded car I mean...
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The Hyundai? Looks ok, if a little dusty...
Fortunately, the running and swimming is fine here, though jogging hasn't really taken off yet and only children wear shorts - that means that whenever I go jogging along the Caspian sea front, about 20% of the people I pass start pointing at me and dissolving into giggles (though maybe this has more to do with my knobbly knees than any cultural differences...). There is, at least, one triathlon race here, though the swimming has to take place in a different location to the bike and run as there are only a couple of circuits safe enough to ride around - i.e. basically the same, but with a 3 hour T1! I'm already planning my holidays back to the UK to coincide with a few races next summer...
just being nosey.
Or do they get killed in action trying to reach the top??[&:]
Looks like I'm sticking to Belgium!
I'm not sure that anyone here would qualify as an Elite or Pro... possibly a couple of enthusiastic but amateur, once a year triathletes. Azerbaijan's Olympic strengths lie in Wrestling, Judo and other similar sports - i.e. sports where you don't have to go anywhere where you might get run over!
I have swum in the Caspian Sea since I've been here - feels slightly surreal using an oil rig as your sighting point! It's not really recommended polution wise, but I certainly can't manage without any open water practice for 3 years.
Which gives me an idea for another off-beat thread - where's the wierdest place you done an open water swim?
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Now I've repaired the puncture only to find that wheel looks buckled. So now I'm looking at a new wheels for the bike. I'm really peeved about this as the bike only 3 months old.
It goes back to the state of the roads in this country, the bloody resurface them and then low and behold the gas main needs sorted or the drains need redoing blah blah.... why can't they bloody talk to each other and do it in one big organised effort, its not rocket science. I work in the (ailing) construction industry so its not impossible....
Now I need to find new wheels and just before christmas, not happy at all since there was nothing wrong with the old ones.