Touring - Chip seal

We all ride on seal coated highways. In my experience in states other than Texas, seal coat for the most part, is not a problem relative to rolling resistance. A smooth pebble rock is layered over the asphalt. In Texas, the rock is often a course, faceted, crushed granite(chips)with extreme rolling resistance. For motorist, it is very noisy. For cyclist, it is like pedaling into an 8 mph headwind vs rolling on smooth seal coat. It's pervasive in Texas.

How about your state? Do you ever, often encounter seal coat with high rolling resistance? When touring, have you delt with much course chip seal in states other than Texas? I haven't.

The question is asked to see if my Don Quixote like thrust to be aimed at TDOT has basis in fact. I bet they're trembling in anticipation.

Chip seal is quite commonly used in parts of Canada and Australia.

Chipseal is used here in Sweden to fill the gaping cracks left in roads after the spring thaw. Fairly easy to avoid. What I have a bigger problem with are the roads where much of the bitumen (tar/asphalt whatever you want to call it) has worn away leaving the bigger rocks exposed like mini-cobble stones. Riding those roads feels a lot like dealing with a persistent headwind while climbing a low grade hill.

Chipseal is very common in Washington State. They've been putting it over machine-laid asphalt that was in perfect condition. Maybe it's the asphalt lobby. I just suck it up and work on my pedal stroke.

I estimate only riding 80% the smooth machine laid asphalt distance on chip and seal. One of the problems in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia is they can only lay it down in the prime bike riding times of the year when it's not raining. Sometimes they do a good job at making it smooth, but often the gravel is wavy and is the pits to ride on. Also if they get too generous with the fresh gravel the loose stuff winds up on the shoulder and beyond making next to impossible to see where the edge is. My bike and bike shoes are heavily splattered with the hot oil picked up in September on the Olympic Peninsula. I am going to take my frame in to be powder coated in December and they should have no problem burning all the tar off along with the paint.

It varies here. Sometimes I swear they'll lay down some 1" aggregate and it rattles your teeth out. Sometimes they use some nice 3/8" gravel and you get a pretty sweet ride. Sometimes they even use slurry seal for smooth runnings.

It is usually done with finer crushed rock here and most places I have ridden as compared to Texas. I rode most of Texas on the ST with 23 mm Gatorskin tires. The ride was pretty bad. The buzz was downright obnoxious, but there was a big improvement when I switched to 25 mm tires.

Cyclebum, I ride areas south of San Antonio and they are hitting most all the secondary and backroads with this mess. In my area it is because of the heavy truck traffic that resulted from the huge amount of drilling associated with the Eagle Ford Shale. Lots cheaper than real paving, but sucks for cars and bikes alike. I wish you well in getting Tx Dot to change their ways.

Chipseal is very common in Washington State. They've been putting it over machine-laid asphalt that was in perfect condition. Maybe it's the asphalt lobby. I just suck it up and work on my pedal stroke.

Toured south from Tacoma through Oregon a couple of years ago and don't recall any complaints about the road surfaces in either state. I do remember the hundreds of miles of wild blackberries ripe for the picking, and the total absence of roadkill.

Here is a Washington state (http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/4A21ECE8-114B-434D-B967-0927541CE042/0/AsphaltSealCoats.pdf) primer on asphalt seal coats. No info on how frequently they use the rough stuff.

BTW, that highway I'm riding in the picture is paved with the rough stuff.

The question is asked to see if my Don Quixote like thrust to be aimed at TDOT has basis in fact. I bet they're trembling in anticipation.

good luck with that.....but the most likely outcome, don, is yet another piece of
legislation introduced to ban bicycle riding on all roads outside of municipalities.

Don't see it that often in PA, but when I do it's usually fine enough to make it only a minor issue.

The '02 edition of Cycle Oregon was the worst. We crossed the entire state from east to west. Had a couple of days that seemed like nothing but chip seal. Butt cream was in high demand. Had some this year, too.

I couldn't believe how Washington puts chip seal down on fresh asphalt. Montana seemed to like the stuff as well, but not as much as WA.

Other places I've ridden use "tar and gravel" as a cheap repair method. In the unusual event they pave the whole road, instead of just a patch it usually lasts 2-3 years before they have to repave the road (with asphalt).

When the PanAm games came to Winnipeg, the cycling association and the PanAm association mapped out a Time Trial route for the participants, and then requested that the Manitoba government fix up and repave the shoulders so that they would be nice for the games.

The Manitoba government did ... with heavy, gravelly chipseal. For whatever reason, the person in charge of the fixing and repaving thought that would be the best surface for the occasion.

A pre-PanAm games Time Trial was held for all the Manitoba racers ... kind of a dress rehearsal ... and I raced that day. The event was good, but the road surface was awful. I think everyone logged their worst times.

But it was too late to do anything about it and the PanAm cyclists raced on it. So ... it's even used during significant events.

The default sealed road surface on most roads outside of main cities is chip seal here. It's sometimes used in the towns as well. Just when it's worn to a nice smooth ride, they relay it.

I think it's a conspiracy by the tire manufacturers.

Eventually all of the rural roads (less than state highway status) get some type of seal coat here in Wisconsin. Initially the loose material is a real hazzard at the edge of the road and intersections. In my area they often used crushed basalt which can have some very sharp pieces. Historically most of my flats come on relatively fresh coatings of this type. The small rounded pea gravel can be looser to ride on at first but at least it isn't sharp.

Here in NH they love what they call skim coating. Not chip and seal, that would be grand. I like to call their technique scab coating. They toss it down whereever it is needed and to say doesn't last worth a crap is an understatement. Typically they use it when they are going to end up repaving in another 2-3 years and want to try to make the road last a little longer. I'll take chip and seal any day over what I have to deal with up here. It may not be the smoothest stuff but chip and seal is far better than what I have to deal with up here.

It may not be the smoothest stuff but chip and seal is far better than what I have to deal with up here.

Yeah? Come on down and ride some fresh Texas chip seal on a road bike with skinny tires. Or drive on it. You need ear plugs. I don't understand why motorist don't rise up in rebellion.

My steel framed bent with big tires make it tolerable. Barely.

We have it on tertiary roads around here. Which are often the prettiest roads to ride. But it's way better than the chip seal I knew as a kid. Provides a pretty decent ride (although I wouldn't want to ride on it exclusively) unless they start running logging trucks on it. They'll tear it up in a week.

There are a whole lot of different ways to apply seal coatings, and even chip seal can vary a lot, depending on who does it, and how they do it, and what aggregate they use. Perhaps the biggest factor is what the substrate is. Where I used to live in Indiana many of the county roads (and the ones in nearby Michigan) were not actually asphalt roads. They were well built gravel roads that in the 60s and 70s were chip sealed, directly on the gravel. You grade the road, spray on the asphalt, and put some aggregate on top of it. If you do the rolling and sweeping of it right, you end up with a decent all weather surface, though one that's a lot rougher than is ideal. I'd bet a bunch of the texas roads the original poster is complaining about are done this way, too, especially if they are (or were) low traffic. They also are very flexible, so they're susceptible to gouging and groving and frost heaving. A lot of these got paved with a real top coat of asphalt, and fall apart. A chip coat on real asphaltic concrete road is a lot nicer, particularly if it's rolled with a roller, and not just traffic doing the compaction.

the county did a batch of chip seal on paved roads, and while annoying, it actually came out fairly well. Although there is one mountain road that used to be pretty nice and now isn't. Hopefully this is stopgap and they are planning on real pavement next time around. There was one road that doesn't get much traffic that they used 1/2" pea gravel on a couple of years back. You couldn't use road tires on it for quite a while, but it has all worked its way in now. I keep wondering if they are going to let that particular road go back to gravel.

Most of the roads around here are on the rough side, with reddish quartzite being the rock most commonly used for chipseal. I can ride about 2 mph faster on a smooth, freshly paved asphalt road than I can on the roads with chipseal. I'd call that a significant difference.

The crews around here don't usually sweep the roads after laying the chipseal, so with the low volume of traffic we have it can take months before the loose rock disappears.

When spring comes the maintenance crews will repair the cracks that have developed in the asphalt roads over the winter by forcing hot asphalt into the cracks and then covering the repaired crack with toilet paper. I assume other places use that method, but I don't recall seeing it elsewhere.

Cyclebum,
Your chip seal is bad enough to keep me away from that little ride you guys call HHH. No telling how many riders they would have if it was on smooth pavement!

I've done some touring in Ok reed, from the mountains to the plains. On nice, smooth highways. Ok is a great place to tour. Lots of state parks. My first foray there was around Roman Nose not far from Perkins.

I swore off touring in Texas due to the pervasive use of rough aggregate. In spite of my resolution, I find myself headed for Big Bend again in January, the allure of the area prevailing over TDOT.

I've done some touring in Ok reed, from the mountains to the plains. On nice, smooth highways. Ok is a great place to tour. Lots of state parks.
I only rode across a bit of it, but found the roads to be in really poor shape in OK. The experience was limited to riding Rt 56 across the pan handle though. The comparison in road condition when leaving KS and entering OK was really dramatic. The pot holes in OK were very poorly patched and the shoulders were all cracked and broken up. Additionally, I am pretty sure both the lanes and shoulders were more narrow.

Based on that experience I figured that I'd avoid OK where possible. Based on your comments, maybe I should give the state a second chance.

I only rode across a bit of it, but found the roads to be in really poor shape in OK. The experience was limited to riding Rt 56 across the pan handle though. The comparison in road condition when leaving KS and entering OK was really dramatic. The pot holes in OK were very poorly patched and the shoulders were all cracked and broken up. Additionally, I am pretty sure both the lanes and shoulders were more narrow.

Most of my riding in OK was on rural state roads and my memory for condition detail has receded. I have no bad memories of the surface conditions. OTOH, I distinctly recall going from A+ highways in SD to D highways in Minnesota. Sort of like your memory of KS to OK. Locally, there is a dramatic change from smooth asphalt to awful chip seal when entering TX from AR north of Texarkana. AR and LA rarely ever use the stuff TDOT loves, not that their highway systems are anything to brag about. Texas does have arguably the best network of highways in the US.

I've done some touring in Ok reed, from the mountains to the plains. On nice, smooth highways. Ok is a great place to tour. Lots of state parks. My first foray there was around Roman Nose not far from Perkins.

Jerry,

I toured through OK on the OK Freewheel this summer and although the roads were far from perfect they were a fair sight better than the fresh chip seal west of Hawkins on US 80 or many of the FM roads here in East Texas. Roman Nose and surrounding areas are beautiful. Southern Arkansas and Northern Louisiana roads don't seem to be much better.

What I love to find is a smooth oil dirt meander through the rural hardwoods. These back country roads often get little traffic and make for peaceful, smooth cruising.

I'm headed up into Southern Arkansas in two weeks and I'm pouring over maps trying to figure out how to avoid the brutal chip seal as I pass through your "neck of the woods". Is there a good route North from Atlanta State Park?

I'm headed up into Southern Arkansas in two weeks and I'm pouring over maps trying to figure out how to avoid the brutal chip seal as I pass through your "neck of the woods". Is there a good route North from Atlanta State Park?

I can route you thru Texarkana via the 'scenic' route that will take you right by the LBS and dump you on Hwy 71 N within a couple of hundred feet of the AR line, allowing you to avoid the afore mentioned chip seal on 71, and lots of traffic. Will PM asap.

Where do you ride in Texas? Rowan and I just did a 40 km ride in Texas, and there was chipseal, but it wasn't too bad.

Where do you ride in Texas? Rowan and I just did a 40 km ride in Texas, and there was chipseal, but it wasn't too bad.

Course aggregate chipseal is all over Texas. If it's been down long enough for traffic to press the rocks into the asphalt, lane riding is not bad when traffic allows, mostly on more rural roads. Of course, shoulders never get smooth. TDOT proclaims course aggregate is safer than smooth, and has studies to back the claim. Here is link (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/856484-Chip-seal) to another thread I started on BF. For a very good defense of TDOT's position, scroll down to michaelcycle's posts.

I recently rode from Texas chipseal onto Arkansas chipseal. Ark uses a finer aggregate that still has good grip characteristics, but is quiter and a bit smoother.

Well, we cycled on the shoulders of Hwy 171 today ... not bad at all. Not nearly as bad as what I've encountered in Manitoba.

On a recent ride from Texas into Arkansas, I documented the various highway surfaces. US 59 had 6 miles of smooth concrete, then 6 miles of a mix of concrete, course chipseal, asphalt, and medium chipseal, both on the shoulder and in the traffic lanes. The route into Atlanta, Tx was all smooth asphalt. The route out on a state highway was fresh, course, chipseal. At the Ark line, the Texas chipseal turned into a finer grade, smoother sealcoat which continued to my destination.

284566284567284568284569284570

The quality of the roads in Texas vary widely. Many roads have a shoulder much, much rougher than the lane and is clearly not intended for traffic but merely a place to catch shredded tires and broken beer bottles. Wide tires do help a lot.

Over time the rough chip seal smooths out on the driving lanes but the shoulders stay rough forever. I take great pains to avoid many of the major roads and choose instead to take my chances with the farm dogs, pot holes, and chickens. However, that way is always hillier and slower.

Perhaps an increase in cycle traffic will raise awareness and conditions will improve. My town has announced that all future development will include improved cycling shoulders. Now if only we can get the County Law Enforcement to crack down on loose nuisance dogs......

Here are two examples to add to Cyclebum's list, the best I've seen, and the not so good: 285716 285713

Look how clean and smooth that shoulder is! Breathtaking!

Methinks the OP complaineth too much.

Honestly, I can't see much wrong in any of the pictures posted in the thread. I've been on much MUCH worse surfaces in the New England area where the ice has cause long, wide heaves in the asphalt (and we were riding in late summer).

And if you want hard-on-the-butt, even the concrete roads here in Lake Charles are tough because of broken corners and edges on the slabs, and the ever-present expansion joints.

Road and shoulder surfaces vary from very good to very bad in all parts of the world. Even bike paths in Holland can be iffy, whether it's rough surface from upraised pavers (or just pavers for miles and mile and miles) or tree root penetration.

It just means being picky with your routes, improving your bike set-up with wider tyres at lower inflation, and improving your riding skills.

Shoulder cleanliness, however, is another matter...

This is the chipseal near Hillsboro, Texas ... really, quite a lovely shoulder for riding. I wish we had more of these in Australia. The shoulders there sometimes disappear at inconvenient times, and can be really rough in places.


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8208/8193980023_440a80262d_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/machka-bb/sets/72157630063425035/)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8344/8193978397_144d5e09b7_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/machka-bb/sets/72157630063425035/)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8489/8193976939_1c9ecf0479_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/machka-bb/sets/72157630063425035/)

Methinks the OP complaineth too much.

Apparently not Rowan. TDOT refuses to switch to fine aggregate, in spite of my polite, erudite, protest.:cry: Something about the course stuff being cheap, and whining about a lack of money for smooth, quite highways. Oh well, guess it's time to find another windmill to tilt at.

It's a matter of keeping at them. These things are evolutionary. I can't think of any good reason why the DOT would change its policy -- it's sort of got you by the short and curlies with the cost-saving side of things in the current economic climate.

From what I have seen, a lot of governments are just resealing the lanes and not over the shoulders, which leaves the shoulders to deteriorate.

You should go to Amarillo and see what they have done on the main road through the joint -- laid down two strips per lane that correspond to just wider than the tyre tracks of trucks. It's rough as guts to drive on (goes with the rest of the city, it seems), and if you are on a bike, you'd have to seek out a parallel road, or ride the sidewalk. That, I have to admit, is a bad situation (although probably not TDOT jurisdiction).

When the PanAm games came to Winnipeg, the cycling association and the PanAm association mapped out a Time Trial route for the participants, and then requested that the Manitoba government fix up and repave the shoulders so that they would be nice for the games.

The Manitoba government did ... with heavy, gravelly chipseal. For whatever reason, the person in charge of the fixing and repaving thought that would be the best surface for the occasion.Please pardon me for laughing- hopefully you can`t hear me! It really is funny, though. Well, it`s funny for somebody who doesn`t ride on those roads :D

I really have to hand it to the highway dept in my state for an amazing nicety that they pulled off for cyclists. There`s an anual HPV (pedal powered streamliner shells) speed trial series that`s landed several world records on a short section of state highway. About four years back, I read that the state had repaved that section of roadway for the racers. This year, I went to watch and volunteer at that event for a few days and was surprised to see just how nice they had made it up- for about 6 miles they skipped the chipseal and the rumble strips that line both shoulders on the rest of that particular highway. Can ya believe it !?!

Please pardon me for laughing- hopefully you can`t hear me! It really is funny, though. Well, it`s funny for somebody who doesn`t ride on those roads :D

I really have to hand it to the highway dept in my state for an amazing nicety that they pulled off for cyclists. There`s an anual HPV (pedal powered streamliner shells) speed trial series that`s landed several world records on a short section of state highway. About four years back, I read that the state had repaved that section of roadway for the racers. This year, I went to watch and volunteer at that event for a few days and was surprised to see just how nice they had made it up- for about 6 miles they skipped the chipseal and the rumble strips that line both shoulders on the rest of that particular highway. Can ya believe it !?!
Yeah, I can, because someone organising the event was a great marketer who was able to demonstrate that for the cost of doing the paving work, the return on investment by the relevant authority was going to be much greater.

That return is exposure for the town and area. The event brings in people annually, and will likely continue to do so for years to come.

That puts money into the local economy. And the exposure, because of said records, is considerable in national and international media. Even you've participated in that with your post.

Because we are talking about tourism, one of the carrots that DOTs and the like will listen to is the increased revenue that will come to an area with additional tourist trade.

But if the department does take on board the marketing approach and changes its policy, the evidence will be gradual as roads that recently were repaved won't be for another five to seven years. Picking heavily used cycle-touring routes can be helpful in their decision-making, as can be maintaining contact with relevant managers -- building relationships with them can be very beneficial.

Picking heavily used cycle-touring routes can be helpful in their decision-making, as can be maintaining contact with relevant managers -- building relationships with them can be very beneficial.

Good thought. Our TDOT district recently discovered that they were suppose to have a designated 'cycling' advisor. That in itself is amazing. Anyway, they appointed one of their employees, Molly B., to this prestigious position, 'cause Molly's husband owns the LBS in Texarkana, and organizes a yearly racing event that attracted 140 competitors this year and is growing fast. Molly is of course aware of
the need for smooth surfaces for this race, currently run largely on chip sealed, rural state roads. Maybe something will come from her advocacy, at least for the 20 miles of the route, which even I occasionally ride, slowly.

These CAT something cyclists and their companions, spend a significant amount of money in the area for the 3 days of the event.

At least this County, Seems most of the OR Coast route,US 101 is Macadam rolled over with the steel drum roller machines.
Roadway and Shoulders. not too Bad..

of course the cold patch spots are different .. sometimes compacted.

and the traffic lanes get roughened up by studded tires worn 'just in case'.. when allowed .

the studded tire season, almost like Going off daylight savings on the calendar.