Originally Posted by froze
Thanks for the tips guys. Not sure what a chip seal road is Kathi. I drove around Fort Wayne quite a bit and did not run into any rough surfaces-but that was in the city not the rural areas. My last impression of mid west rural roads was when I use to live in Ohio, and that seemed to be gravel mixed into blacktop-is that chip seal? I rode on those when I was a kid on steel bikes and never experience any problem, but as a kid the rough stuff was good! But alas I'm older now so I will probably have to wait and see-or feel.
Well, not exactly....
What they do is go and spray down some really nasty wet n sticky asphalt stuff on a road that is getting rather along in wear and then they throw on a whole bunch of pea gravel about 3"-4". At least, that is how I have seen it done. They do not roll out the stuff. They just figure that the cars will eventually force all of the pea gravel into the asphalt and sort of make a new layer of pavement. They generally do this during the hot months of summer so the asphalt will stay nice and sticky long enough. It does force things into all the cracks in the road and fills them in pretty well.
It is not nice to be riding along and then hit a stretch of this stuff on the bike. You can even get little splatters of asphalt on your bike and yourself not to mention pea gravel flying everywhere. It doesn't happen that often. It is just something that your remember for a very long time. I did know a guy who was descending down a steep grade in northern Michigan in the high 40s and he went around the corner and there right in front of him was a long stretch of road with a nice 3" deep layer of pea gravel. He did manage to slow down in time but apparantly it was quite a shock. Three inches of pea gravel is not something I would like to plow into at 45+ mph.