So sad. One of the reasons I don’t do any road-riding anymore. So many stories, so many tragedies.
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Yes, part of it is age. I simply can’t afford to fall off a bike at my age, whence - once upon a time - I could probably take a sailor’s dive at 20 mph and circus -roll away with a broken bone and a bunch of road rash. Now, even with a helmet, the risk is so much higher.
It’s funny that MMA training has less risk for life or limb than public roads’ inevitable assurance of speed and mass or the combination of both; not to mention malice…
It is what it is.
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@Carolina_Cycling_Ute, et al. I have also noticed the previously described, heinous slot grooves cut in the road for internet use are baaaack. Seems the original sub-contractors tar used to cover the slots melted into oblivion pretty quickly in the heat and sunshine. It’s particularly sinister, because they run parallel with the course of the road and can easily “railroad track” your front wheel and launch you. In other words, it’s now splitting the miniscule 1-3 feet bikes can safely navigate into a nightmare decision: be perilously too close to the road edge and ditch, or brace the previously aforementioned imbeciles on cell phones out in the lane…
Be careful out there!
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This is a big problem! (In the old days I would have capitalized BIG, but for obvious reasons no thoughtful person does that anymore.)
Yes, you are correct. Whatever was used to fill the narrow trenches originally, has either reduced in size/density over time, or was applied incorrectly, resulting in “reappearing” grooves, almost exactly the width of a road bike wheel/tire, running parallel and close to the curb, precisely where road bikers are most likely to encounter them.
I have continued my personal “one man” quest to solve this problem, that started 3 or 4 years ago.
Photos, and emails with descriptions of the specific roads and addresses, to Google Fiber, will elicit eventual email and phone call responses. Since I am now retired, I have the time to follow up on these calls/emails, and eventually, some/most of the problems I report are corrected.
I am appalled by the lack of follow through on the part of Salt Lake City Corp. I have emailed, and left phone messages for the person who is responsible for oversight of the City’s contract with Google Fiber, and have never once received a response. I have never received a response from the mayor, when emailing to ask questions about the lack of response from her employee.
Editorial: If your vision involves increasing the number of people traveling your city streets on bicycles, don’t allow your own contracts with private enterprise to make it more dangerous to do so.
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Those are very dangerous for the exact reason you stated. Those grooves/cuts need to be filled with something other than tar. I don’t know what, but they do.
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On the hotest days the wheels “swim” in the tar and that can be unstable as well
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Been there, done that. It’s a bit disconcerting when you wheel(s) begin to slide out from under you.
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Distillate slime is a big problem with asphalt roads and trails. It’s bad enough with cars and motorcycles (had a motorbike slide out from under me once due to it). Bicycles…beyond frightening.
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