A warning to those of two-wheel persuassion, is to beware of the road sanders. As is my want and tootling along the country back roads from work to home yesterday, a particularly sweeping bend was interrupted by a swathe of sand/grit in the middle of it. More by luck than judgement, I made it round.
Further on, same again. It looks like the Highway boys in E.Suffolk are attempting to save the roads from melting by the application of sand. IMHO, it will take more then that to save them. And another thing, there was (past tense) a freshly re-surfaced road. Well I think it was, hard to tell with all that tar sloshing around!!
Grump over.
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Been all over bike forums for days now. ;o)
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Well, I just thought it might be of interest to the4-wheeled oiks out there.
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Is this a wind up?. Sand is being spread on roads to stop them melting?. Its only 30-32C outside!!!.
Putting aside the incredulous scenario of melting roads (what the hell are they paved with?), how is sand going to stop it?.
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The sand they use up here is white sand (or possibly stone grit) and is used to reflect the sun off it rather than let the black tar soak up all the heat. Seems to work as well.
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No doubt we will be told by them that global warning/climate change has ruined the roads, and it will take 25 years and Billions £s to repair the damage.
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Firstly its 36c here
Secondly, when I parked my car at lunchtime I came back to find it had made indentations in the tarmac
Thirdly Its not sand - its powdered granite and it helps to deflect/disipate the surface road temperature, which can easily easily be 15c higher than ambient in the sun, making it 50c + Hot enough to melt the tarmac
BTW peeps - take care of your doggies, Friends pooch has burnt pads after a walk on pavements.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Sounds like an issue with the quality or type of tarmac used on the roads in that area. I haven't noticed any melted tarmac around here. What do they use on the roads in much hotter climates?. I don't recall seeing sand spread on roads in hot desert countries.
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It is the same issue as the railway lines buckling - you design a system (tarmac or rail) for the conditions you expect it to experience - to do more inflates the cost un-necessarily.
They when you get extreme temperatures you get problems.
Another example is designing marine structures to withstand the 100 year wave - when the 200 year wave comes along it will wash them away - what you don't know as the designer is whether the 200 year wave will come in 200 years - or tomorrow!
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It was sensible of you to raise this issue as some of us do ride bikes at motorway speeds. Also if you ride a scooter in this heat it does appear to wear the rear tyre out much more quickly. I'll be keeping my eyes skinned for the white grit, (I nearly said white git!). You want to keep your arse off the road. No hard landings! So go carefully chaps. Didn't realise how slippery these dry roads are! Mikey
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I was visiting the scene of an accident yesterday evening with the local Highways Engineer and our expert witness (an ongoing case - disputing some Police skid resistance claims) when I was amazed to see a Gritter until he explained why ! The thing he leaked to me was that LAs are now looking at stopping this ashphalt/chipping re-surface carp due to warmer summers and the rapid faliure of these surfaces. Good news indeed.
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They tar spray and chip the roads round here every few years - it doesn't last long and yesterday was melting so much it sounded like driving through standing water. No sign of any gritters either!
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OK. To keep the pedantic types happy.
1. It looked like sand. It may have been ground rock dust or even grit from Saudi Arabia, I didn't manage to take time out to grab a sample, but when one is up to one's backside in crocodiles, so to speak, it's hard to remember who should have been drained the swamp.
2. The back roads are chipped round here and then left to the road user to compact down. And no they don't last long. Mind you, they do cover up/hide the pot holes! It's amazing why they bother doing it at harvesting time, as the combines & big tractors (and I do mean big) destroy a lot of the work. But that's another thread.
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Moved house a few weeks ago. Lovely big driveway with enough space to apply for an NCP franchise, but still not quite wide enough to turn round a V70 on full lock.
Wanting to drive out, not reverse out, and being careful to keep the car rolling as I did so, I executed a mild three point turn; mild as I probably needed about a third reverse lock to have the required second bite at the turn.
Was horrified on return home to find:
1) The tarmac ripped open in two places (one for each front wheel) like a sore wound over the 75cm distance it took to change lock
2) Oil positively weeping out of the "wound"
3) Perfect (and I mean perfect) oily Goodyear Eagle 225/45x17 GSD3 F1 tyre tread marks for about three metres afterwards. They are still there today.
By chance, on the way home I reversed in to the drive, meaning I performed a "rolling steering lock change" in the road; no damage at all. Even tarmac specced for a quiet residential cul-de-sac is much higher quality than that for a two year old home, it seems!
What mildly annoys me is that I abided by the advice I give to others of never, ever, to scrub tyres whilst stationary, and thanks to the heat, still damaged the drive!
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We were on the East Coast yesterday avoiding the silly temps - it was a very pleasant 23 degrees and the road from Whitby to Scarbro was being 'gritted'. It was like the Californian dust bowl. Most of the dust was blowing away as it was so windy!
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It's amazing why they bother doing it at harvesting time
This amazed me until a meeting with my own LA over a school issue and re-painting. Apparantly mine has a department that has the paint, another department to apply it and another to do the Risk Ass. This true and have it minuted !
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