Lately they've been spraying the road I commute on with oil. Is this dangerous to ride on? Will oil get all over my clothes and my bike? How long before its ok ride on? In the mean time Im back to using my car until I find out what to do.

Anybody have experience riding on this stuff?

OIL? Isn't that one of the most dangerous things you can pour on the road? The reason there are so many accidents on the first day of rain is because oil goes to the top and causes lots of slippage. This is the first time I've heard of oil being sprayed on the roads. You may want to call the county on this one.

that sounds weird. why would they deliberately spray the road with oil? is this a country road next to a field that's being sprayed with something?

Are you sure its not hot tar?

Some places will spray a heavy oil on the road to keep dust down. I wouldn't want to ride on it - it's sticky, rather than slippery, but it will make a HORRIBLE mess of your bike and your clothing!

I'm thinking this is either crazy or it's tar or bitumin... maybe some kind of surface sealant.

Is this a western province thing? Oil cheaper than water kind of thing?

Maybe this depleting oil resources thing is a myth.

Is this a new 'chip seal' road? aka tar and gravel?

or is it a dirt/gravel road and they are spraying a calcium chloride solution down to keep the dust down? These dust control chemicals are generally sticky. I guess if its a chloride solution you could hasten corrosion of a steal frame or components.

It could be a dust thing, or around here, after they have scraped the surface in preparation for fresh tarmac they will put down oil. It helps bind the new surface to the old somehow. It is very messy though, get it on your clothes and they are toast. You'll probably need to get some tar and bug remover for the car.

I don't think it's dangerous. I'm assuming that it's a dirt road (they only spray oil on dirt roads), which is somewhat more hazardous than a paved one for bikes. Still, there's no way oil will make a dirt road slippery. They don't get that way.

I think you need to stop somewhere on your way to work, get out, and touch the surface of the road and see what it feels like. Is it really oily? Or is it just some kind of surface treatment stuff like tar?

You're the only one here that can figure out what it is and once you do that it should be an easy call wether to ride on it or not with your bike. Remember just because it's black and starts out as a liquid, doesn't make it oil.

For an easy test though, go out to your car, reach up above the wheel into one of the wheel wells and see if there's a lot of new black tar or anything beyond the normal. Touch the treads of your tires as well (you can wipe em with a paper towel instead of your hand if you wish) If there's nothing significant then you should be fine on the bike.

They? City or County or Provincial? Call the engineers or roads office, give time and place and ask what it is. Ask if it is hazardous to self, cloths, bike, or car finish. And how to get it off. They better answer or contact your elected officials.

Avoid it like the plague until:

• A week or so has elapsed.
• It has rained hard.
• The road has been swept in some fashion.

There's more to consider than just your traction and fling-off from your own tires.

Right, what type of road are we talking about? My road gets oiled, but it's a gravel road, and the dust gets horrible. (And, I don't ride it, as I just spin my rear tire on the gravel, and promptly fall over. )

my company sealed the driveway last summer and it was about a month before the first rain. when that day came i rode as carefuly as could be and still went down like a ton of bricks on the first curve.

They still oil the dirt roads down here to keep the dust down. I have no idea why one would oil tarmac though.

what kind of oil do they use? Some sort of motor oil or something? Seems like an expensive process but what do I know?

Well, they don't want that oh-so-valuable dirt getting away from them, y'know...

It's going to be messy. When I lived in California every few years they would coat the asphalt roads with oil and then a layer of sand on top of that. I don't know why. Maybe it was to keep people's snow driving skills up as it never snowed there.

Well, it used to be that they used waste oil. Do a websearch on "Times Beach". I think they're a little more careful nowadays.

TOTALLY!!!!

Watch when it rains on them and the water lays in puddles with a nice rainbow affect on it .....

I've gone down on corners when I hit --- good grief something!!! that just took my tires sideways - getting up looking down and it's oil.

In the city here they just do cheap patches on the roads for several years - tar/loose stone - that's bad enough. But out in the sticks where I was from (and not far from here) they will lay the oil down - I think also to deter the weeds.

Watch out!!

I asked the driver of the tanker truck several years ago. He said it was an oil based product called Dustmaster. Supposedly safe to the environment. There aren't carcasses and dead vegetation lining the roads, but maybe that is what the sanitation trucks are for.

They did this at our cottage about 10-15 years ago and it just ended up making all of our bikes filthy and it was really hard to get off.

I have seen road construction crews oiling new blacktop (asphalt) roads. They had a sign that said "warning - fresh oil". Most of us wouldn't drive on it for fear of really getting our cars messy. We went the long way around the area to avoid it.