Paris-Roubaix NC style
 

The nice pavement we have enjoyed in the Piedmont area of NC is rapidly disappearing. After all the wet weather, the icing, scraping of roads and lack of funding for road improvements for several years we have more miles of washboard and gatoring than I've seen before. I'm betting it's just going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

You can even hear the pavement crumbling under your tires. I'm just glad my bottle cages work really well because I'd constantly have a water bottle jumping off the bike. It's actually pretty dangerous in places where not only there are huge potholes, there are cracks wide enough to grab and wheel and leave you moving without the bike.

Riding over some areas today made me think about those poor guys doing Paris-Roubaix. Maybe I just need to be a Cross Bike**********

Rode this morning and at one point I stopped to see if I had a puncture. It was on back roads but when I stopped- My feet started sinking. The road surface was breaking up and it was just like riding on gravel.

And Puddles in the road. Bit muddy round here and you can't see if it is just a surface puddle or a pothole.

But Paris Roubaix- One of my mates is doing the "French" Etape of it. He is trying to find a wheel that is going to stand up so I think I have just sold my old Tandem wheels. Rhino lite rims with XT tandem hubs and 40 spokes. He has wrecked his Hand builts riding the flatter offroad trails round here. And he has broken his old steel frame that he was going to do it on so is building up a cross bike based on a 29 mtb.

I know what you mean, and that's certainly the case around Raleigh, and probably a lot of middle Southern states. This morning was like an obstacle course, in that we were constantly jockeying our pace line around trying to avoid the ruts and potholes. The roads are full of them. I hope the city and state will get out and repair these as soon as the weather allows. Speaking of weather, I don't know how much water Charlotte has been getting but our lakes around here are overflowing. Trees along the sides have the bases submerged, boathouses that are only showing their roofs, creeks and rivers at flood stage. Our ground is totally saturated. I guess its better than a drought though.

Water levels were so high Friday many of the roads I would have biked on were closed with water coming over the pavement. I stopped on one bridge this afternoon to take a closer look, and there were trees the size of Sequois trapped on the columns under the bridge. Another major rain and the bridge could get compromised with the lateral forces.

Some of my buddies live on the lakes said they have to walk "up the ramp" to their floating docks. At least they have not come off. Some folks have their floating docks attached to 4 poles in the lake bed so the dock just moves up and down. They were worried the water level would take their docks up and over the tops of the poles.

It felt sooooooooooooo good just finally ride outdoors again.

Was out today also and +1 on your observations. The saddest part is that state and local budgets are currnetly so constrained that repair work will likely be SLOW in coming. Where is Al gore to warm us up when we need it?!

Poor pavement quality drove me to bigger tires -- 28c's on the bike I ride most out on the highway, 32c's for commuting.

Taxing districts and lottery money usage are quite interesting.

Our Urban Drainage and Flood Control District seems to have an unlimited amount of funds, so we see barely flowing or dry creek beds with unnecessary cement reinforcements and phony rock ledges made out of rippled cement.

Our lottery funds are constitutionally entirely dedicated to trails and open space, as is a portion of our gambling taxes. So, we get many, many acres of open space and well-kept trails and new trails. Also, many counties and cities have a special open space mill levy.

At times, the Drainage District and the trail folks work together on spending money, so we see unnecessary bridges crossing those dry creek beds - high water-type bridges - just in case, once in 10 years we might have some high water flowing - and the trail only goes to another neighborhood - and there is another easy trail around it.

In the meantime, schools are laying off hundreds of teachers, individuals with disabilities are waiting 20 years for critical services, roads are getting bad.

While I love the neat trails and acres of open space, something just doesn't add up!!