On Saturday I went out for an organized Century ride and unfortunately discovered a hot weather cycling hazard I had never considered in years of commuting, touring, and road cycling:

The front wheel was taco’ed and the eyeglasses were temporarily repaired but I will need new frames. A couple fellow riders commented about noticing those tar seams too. Buzzman also replied about his experience:

The picture below is near the scene, and note the tar seams on the road surface.



[also posted on the Commuter Forum]

Come to Texas where the entire road gets sticky.

I've hit those by accident but apparently I haven't been as unlucky as you. They basically just felt like the back tire was on ice.

They're much worse on a motorcycle. Trust me on this.

I haven't encountered anything like that, nor do I want to. We just have rough roads and holes..

I have a feeling they're popular in the northern climes for patching breaks in the pavement caused by frost heaves.

Yes and the road crews sometimes use tar to fill pretty large cracks, which of course grab tires. Be careful on those.

It's not the tar so much as the crack that it's hiding. Some of the roads around here have been taared and then lightly resurfaced with a coarse sand/asphalt mix. The essentially hides the tars seams, but they're still there.

Yup, we have them all over the place. Each fall the road maintenance crews seal up cracks in the pavement to prevent moisture from entering and freeze cracking the asphalt. I run over the seams all the time....in fact, you cant prevent hitting them unless you ride a ***ahem***....bike path.

Those things suck! Here in Chicago, we call them "Road Snakes" because they will bite your ass if you aren't careful. Yes, most of the time they just make it feel like your bike wheel has hit an ice patch, but sometimes if they are covering a deep crack, they will bite, and when they do, they can wipe out many people. Usually it comes from someone middle of the pack as they don't see it until it is to late. We have one road where I would say 75% of the road is filled with road snakes near the shoulder.

I've never had an issue with them on my bicycle before, but on motorcycles we call those "tar snakes". They suck in the heat, and suck in the wet. I've lost traction accelerating over those in both conditions on my moto, but I never thought about them as a hazard on the bicycle. Good to know.

Google Joseba Beloki

Well, there ya go. Damn tar snakes...

we call that chip and tar around here... my road just outside my house is usually chip and tarred and when it needs to be redone (as it currently does) it is almost solid tar .. when i pull into my driveway it lays a nice film of tar on my tires and as i pull in my gravel drive it proceeds to spit all the rocks on my car..

chip and tar when freshly laid is also not fun to ride your bike on..

I was unaware of the story of Beloki:

BTW, I posted the identical OP on this thread to the Commuter Forum since I also cycle commute. I mention this not as a criticism, but FYA: On the Commuter thread I got 11 replies and 8 expressed sympathies for my crash. On the Road Cycling thread I got 12 replies and the closest expression of sympathy was:

After reading about Joseba Beloki, don’t cry for me, Argentina.

Yeah, all you get from the roadies is HTFU

I was actually there that day. Watched the climb on the other side. Then the people next to us had a satellite dish, so saw the crash on their TV.

It was hot, and I slipped on a similar patch but, just a bit of slipping nothing catastrophic.


And as for the lack of sympathy, I think the way you posted it, it came off more as a technical issue about melting tar, than a story about your injury,

We didn't mean to be lacking in sympathy.