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Pictures of your least favorite road?

Old 09-28-11, 04:13 PM
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Pictures of your least favorite road?

I'd love to see pics of your not so favorite road(s) or riding surface.

Last edited by scottfl; 09-28-11 at 07:53 PM.
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Old 09-28-11, 04:28 PM
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The streets of Venice are better paved, but they certainly aren't bike friendly.

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Old 09-28-11, 05:20 PM
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Lovely. A few weeks ago I heard about a touring rider who had his entire bike (fully loaded) stolen from a hotel courtyard. People suck.
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Old 09-28-11, 07:23 PM
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Nice tour! Not sure this is really about the roads, but...

Some cobbles in Germany. I normally enjoy them, but I don't think my laptop was up to it:



Heading down from Myrdal to Flåm in Norway. Quite possibly the first time I've ever had to walk my bike on tour (granted, I've never toured outside Europe):

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Old 09-28-11, 08:01 PM
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Least favorite is somewhat subjective since there is sometimes a love/hate relationship with a road that is "challenging" on one hand but "frustrating" on the other.

However, the road that would best fit your description was the stretch between Chita and Khabarovsk in 2007, particularly the ~1700km of gravel. I did this as part of a cross-Russia ride from Amsterdam to Vladivostok. It was frustrating and challenging for several reasons:

1. Cars depreciate more slowly in Russia than in Japan. Hence, there is a market to be made by shipping cars from Japan, selling them in large lots in Vladivostok and then hiring drivers to ferry them inland to cities in Siberia for resale. The net result is a steady stream of cars traveling the other direction - I counted about ~100 an hour at peak periods in morning. Frequently these would travel in packs but the net result was a lot of dust being kicked up as drivers zoomed around in these small Japanese cars as they were pretending they were at the track.

2. Treatment of the gravel surface was a bit different than I was used to in Canada/US including remote roads like the Dalton or Dempster. Rather than an oil surface, there was a tendency to grade over the road base and let it settle again. This led to some parts of the road that were too soft (lots of loose junk) or too hard (washboard surface) and frequently both (loose junk graded over a washboard surface).

3. The length of this part of the road meant that one had multiple weeks to look forward to on this surface. Our average day decreased from ~100km to closer to ~60km when we reached this surface and mentally it is tougher to work through day after day after day of this stuff than know you are there for only a week and will be done.

The thumbnails below show you some of the aspects of this road including:
- Active construction and road graders dumping new gravel
- A (damaged) car on small truck, kicking up gravel
- A small truck with entire windshield blocked off except for small hole. This done to prevent damage from flying rocks
- Some days of "peanut butter" roads after it rained
- Taking photos of the new sediment placed on the road
- A car caked with dust on its way
- Basic endless road, not too much loose stuff but watch for washboards
- More cars and dust on their way
- Early morning profile showing some of the surface
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Old 09-28-11, 08:45 PM
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Originally Posted by mev
- Basic endless road, not too much loose stuff but watch for washboards
That washboard in the last picture looks horrible.
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Old 09-28-11, 09:32 PM
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Picture of my least favorite road? - - - -

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Old 09-28-11, 09:38 PM
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Iceland Route 1 where the gravel starts at the end of a very long day and the road to Modhrudalur which is just nasty.
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Old 09-28-11, 09:42 PM
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My nomination for least favorite road was this one in Switzerland:



It is part of National Cycle Route 9 and Runs along side the train line from the Lungerer sea up to the Brunig pass. The combination of grade and loose rocks made it impossible for my rear tire to gain traction as I pedaled. I ended up walking up the road, slipping about every second step as the traction of cleated bike shoes wasn't very good either.

You can read more about the day I rode over the Brunnig Pass in my journal.
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Old 09-29-11, 01:13 AM
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Traffic on my way out of Seoul on two different occasions. After I escaped the city the road got much better though.

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Old 09-29-11, 05:51 AM
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Originally Posted by raybo
My nomination for least favorite road was this one in Switzerland:

It is part of National Cycle Route 9 and Runs along side the train line from the Lungerer sea up to the Brunig pass. The combination of grade and loose rocks made it impossible for my rear tire to gain traction as I pedaled. I ended up walking up the road, slipping about every second step as the traction of cleated bike shoes wasn't very good either.

You can read more about the day I rode over the Brunnig Pass in my journal.
Wow! I recognise that! I was there in about May of 2010. We managed to ride up that just fine at that time, my girlfriend on some ~32mm Marathons, me on 42mm Pluses. Your photo doesn't do the grade any justice, but then, I've never been able to show slope in a photo, unless it's from the side and from a distance - which is hard when you're on the side of a hill.

The descent into Meiringen on the other side was awesome fun! We then rode over the Grosse Scheidegg (pass) to Grindelwald (next day); the climb is from 400-something meters to a bit over 1900m, and a really really nice ride as far as scenery goes.

EDIT: oops, just been corrected. Apparently my girlfriend did walk bits of it due to poor traction.

Last edited by aggri1; 09-29-11 at 06:00 AM. Reason: made a mistake
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Old 09-29-11, 07:00 AM
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Barbur Blvd Portland, Oregon

Speedway of hellions on a Monday morning! The road is more like riding on a freeway than anything else.



Take the lane sure? When people are passing you at 55 mph and greater you'd be a fool not to

Last edited by Cyclomania; 09-29-11 at 07:04 AM.
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Old 09-29-11, 07:12 AM
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I often took the sidewalk at that spot. Luckily it kinda is like a freeway in that spot - side traffic is low, pretty easy stretch except for the Beav/Hillsdale exit.

Once you get past the Freddy's it's a total mess. You've got a buncha people still trying to roll 55mph and then a bunch of people trying to exit fast food joints, gas stations, grocery stores, head shops, etc. not really looking for bikes.

Oh, and if you start SB from Suki's there's the fun bit where Naito merges with Barbur.

Scary stuff to be sure.
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Old 09-29-11, 08:01 AM
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Gee, with some of those roads above like the really muddy one, do you think it's better with 700x42 or 26x1.95 tires? I mean I'm guessing the 1.95 tires might be sluggish and sticky. But on the rocky roads, would 42mm tires do well enough?
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Old 09-29-11, 08:23 AM
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Originally Posted by LesterOfPuppets
Once you get past the Freddy's it's a total mess. You've got a buncha people still trying to roll 55mph and then a bunch of people trying to exit fast food joints, gas stations, grocery stores, head shops, etc. not really looking for bikes.

Oh, and if you start SB from Suki's there's the fun bit where Naito merges with Barbur.

Scary stuff to be sure.
Those uphill climbs past Freddy's and beyond is murder! And having speedsters zip past is criminal! Left hooks abound!

Barbur needs to be modified for sure. I pine for a separated bike lane!
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Old 09-29-11, 08:26 AM
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Ugh..wouldn't catch me on any of those!
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Old 09-29-11, 08:31 AM
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I loved the stunningly beautiful scenery and challenging road surface until I hit this impassable snow covered portion on East Harrison Lake Road in British Columbia. Really the road is one of my favorites sans this portion, at that time.


Last edited by BigAura; 09-29-11 at 08:48 AM.
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Old 09-29-11, 01:38 PM
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Good post! I'm really enjoying the pictures. I can't even imagine trying to ride a bike on some of those surfaces! For me, it's any narrow road with no shoulder and lots of traffic. If the surface is bad, all the worse.
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Old 09-29-11, 08:39 PM
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Old 09-29-11, 08:56 PM
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IMG_3214.JPG by neilfein, on Flickr

That's an easy one; 25A across Hempstead Harbor. Construction had demoted the road to single-lane status, and that one lane was too narrow for me to allow passing. I booked across the bridge as quickly as I could, cars honking the entire way. I then pulled off to the site and walked the bike up the hill (walking in the grass, where I took this picture from). I then got the hell off 25A as quickly as I could.
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Old 09-30-11, 07:17 AM
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This one wasn't particularly enjoyable:

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Old 10-02-11, 12:25 PM
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Old 10-02-11, 07:32 PM
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Originally Posted by raybo
My nomination for least favorite road was this one in Switzerland:



It is part of National Cycle Route 9 and Runs along side the train line from the Lungerer sea up to the Brunig pass. The combination of grade and loose rocks made it impossible for my rear tire to gain traction as I pedaled. I ended up walking up the road, slipping about every second step as the traction of cleated bike shoes wasn't very good either.

You can read more about the day I rode over the Brunnig Pass in my journal.
I'm glad we saw the gradient info on the route map and decided to ride on the sealed road up to the pass. We descended down the gravel road to the south of the pass. Downhill was OK.
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Old 10-02-11, 11:06 PM
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In 2010 I came across the worst road conditions on cycle route 31 in the Czech Republic. The road was just mud and there was no way around it.

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Old 10-03-11, 09:24 PM
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Siargao Island Loop, Philippines - 105km, more than half of the circumferential road was like this:



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