kblacy

So I have a few favorite routes I like to ride outside of San Antonio near my house and the roads have always been near perfect. Good hills, glass-like pavement, and no cars. A few weeks ago they "repaved" part of the one road that leads to all of my favorite routes. By repaved I mean they removed the roadbed, added more loose rocks, and tared it black for good measure. It's a total flat-fest now for about a quarter mile. It's too far to walk over in road shoes and too rural to expect them to do anything about it.

LawnChair

I saw Road Kill and thought get out the frying pan. But I can't relate to this.

Myfirsttrek

Damn, They just repaved one of my favorite rides. Now the whole thing is like glass.

kblacy

Thanks, that makes me feel so much better.

merlinextraligh

It's called tar and chip, or chipseal. The more heat, and auto traffic the smoother the surface becomes. I wouldn't doubt that the old pavement was tar and chip that had been well compacted over the years.

It's difficult to ride when it is first done. After a week or so its ok. After a couple of months its not bad. And by next summer it will be much better.

robvas

They did that to a bunch of roads out here. The worst part is they don't paint a center line or shoulder lines on the road, so cars are all over the place

DataJunkie

It seems like 90% of the new paving work done around here involves chipsealing.
I avoid it while it is being done and for a week or two afterwards. Like merlinextraligh said the cars smooth it out eventually. A month it is fine. A year smooth. However, the durability seems suspect to me. Roads done in chipseal appear to develop potholes fairly quickly.

jonestr

sounds like it is time for some tougher tires

DataJunkie

The OP will be fine. I ride on these roads with racing tires and rarely flat. It does get a bit bone jaring at first while the cars smooth out the road.

kblacy

My other favorite aspect of riding in a rural area is when the farmers use the road with their tractors. It's amazing what a tractor tire can do to a road.

BlazingPedals

The problem with chipseal here in Michigan is, they use it to resurface the road but they don't fix any holes or cracks first - they just slather over the top of everything like a coating of peanut butter and nuts. The pot holes become *stealth* pot holes, and over time the expansion joints get worse and worse since the tar doesn't stick in the cracks.

patentcad

I ride over chipseal every summer here in Orange County, NY. It sucks, but it will NOT puncture your tires. You have to hold your line and have some riding skills or the loose gravel can make you crash. I've ridden 5+ miles over such stretches of road without a problem. Within a week the worst settles down. A month after they do it you're left with a solid road that's rather rough, but a normal road. 90 days later it's much more smoothed out. How bad it is is highly dependent on how large the diameter of the stones they use. In the town of Warwick they use a 3/8" stone, and the roads are like Fred friggin Flintstone compared to the neighboring towns that use a smaller 1/4" stone diameter.

I will generally avoid oiled roads (that's what they call chip/seal here) for the first week or two until they settle down, but if there's no alternative, I'll ride them. I can usually route my ride around them for a couple of weeks.

dstrong 

They are chipsealing the street I live on RIGHT NOW! Dang...and it was so smooth! But there are a lot of cars that travel this street so hopefully it'll smooth out nicely.

waterrockets 

This summer I came barreling down a familiar descent at 50mph, and saw that the sweeping turn I was about to take had just been chipsealed. I had to stand the bike up (riding out of the turn a bit), grab two handfuls of brakes, and bleed off some speed in a hurry. I hit the chipseal at about 35mph, and it was about 1/2" deep gravel. I don't know how I kept the tires down and stayed out of the oncoming traffic on that one. F-sake.

mocella

Must be chipseal time for all the TX counties - they just ruined 2/3s of one of my favorite loops here in the last week or two.

BananaTugger

The road I live on is being worked over.

So far, they have managed to do a whole lot of nothing while utilizing every piece of equipment and every town worker that they have.

Last week, it was a one way road with the south side paved for people like me to use.

It has since been torn up, leaving a bunch of rocks and sand for my tires to get wasted on. I've been walking a few hundred feet every day to get to the pavement that is just across the town line.

At least the rocks have been moved out of the way by cars rolling over them, so I can put the bike in the thin strip of compacted gravel and sand and Paris-Roubaix it home after the ride.

RazorWind

Did you ever try to ride the dam loop a few months ago when they were (maybe still are?) working on 620 there by the dam? They'd torn the road surface up, and it had this horrible washboard texture. Totally ruined an otherwise pretty nice route for me, and I haven't been back that way since.

waterrockets 

No, I missed that. Last time I went through there on ATC must have been just before these "repairs."

I'll tell you, the new reflector bumps on 71 between SWP and Bee Caves are really dangerous. My bike is like floating 1" off the ground there, at 40mph on the descent. First, there's very little shoulder, then they add bumps?!?!?

collegeskier

The chipseal in TX is horrible. I don't know what they use for rock, but it is big rough. I have ridden a lot of chipseal in other places, not fun but whatever. This stuff is old and still jarring, even in the wheel ruts. Maine, Massachusetts and North Carolina have way better chipseal or so my boys tell me.

As far as for fixing roads it is almost pointless. Even when you put new asphalt down you get reflective cracking. Chipsealing is basically the same as when you seal your driveway, helps keep the water out for a while which helps preserve a road but paving is the way to go.

RazorWind

That does indeed sound sphincter-tightening, but I don't recall the place you're describing. The part of 71 near Bee Caves I've ridden had no shoulder at all, and was pretty flat.

RazorWind

One of the advantages of chip seal is that it provides much better traction for cars and trucks. It also happens to be fairly cheap, as I recall.

RacerOne

If chip and seal just killed your road, all of my roads have been dead for a long time!

patentcad

Been there, done that. Sucks. Don't worry, your estate could sue them for big $ if you're killed.

BillyD

Good one!

Walter

Every summer I spend a few days to a week at my in-laws in East Tx. The county roads and the Farm-Market roads are chip sealed. The county roads are in much worse shape, generally, than the FM roads. My wife and I ride while we are there (grandparents watch the kids ) and we've developed chipseal skills. It's not too bad but far from great.

Here in Fl we have potholes that tear apart CF bikes .