Good to be back on two wheels but...

I have really enjoyed being back on a bike over the last two days. However,
the potholes on side roads are a serious hazard. The two weeks of cold
weather have really done some damage. Its not so bad in daylight but in the
dark and drizzle its really hard to spot the fuckers. I would be
mega-pissed of to damage the new replacement wheels on the V-Strom. If you
are out and about then watch out!

 

I blame the council, they should have known about the snow and ice and had
a load of tarmac ready to fix the roads, overnight, as soon as it cleared.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, YTC#1

Oddly, in cold places such as Sweden, this never seems to be a problem.

Which suggests that our councils use the cheapest road making materials
they can, and those materials cannot stand cold weather.

Which, in our climate is ludicrously short-sighted.

 

If they'ed salted the road properly, most of them wouldn't have frozen, so
no pot-holes caused by freezing....

 

And if they'd got off their arses and repaired last winter's damage
then there wouldn't be half as many potholes this year.

 

During the media frenzy a couple o weeks back one reporter was
interviewing a gritter driver and asked him what he does outside the
winter.

"We come back and repair the damage done by the salt."

 

I wouldn't mind if they didn't grit as much. I can remember when they
only gritted A roads. You just drove accordingly. Mind you I did put
my car through a fence backwards when I was 18. I had driven through
the woods from Lydney to Whitecroft without mishap. Then once I'd left
the trees and got out into the sunshine I accelerated. There was this
hawthorn bush casting a shadow and it left enough black ice for me to
spin the car.

 

I wish they would just grit with a nice coarse grade and forget the whole
salt thing.

 

It was amusing when GCC started using that Safecote stuff, rock salt mixed
with molasses, on the roads in the FoD. The bloody feral sheep decided they
liked it and used to congregate on the road verges waiting for the gritters
to pass through then lick the stuff off the road. Roads full of sheep and
sheep shit but no salt had amusing consequences for local drivers.

That was c.2001 just before leaving Xerox. I imagine they have returned to
plain rock salt now.

 

took a blunt brush and painted...
Yes Des.

Are the pot holes caused by freezing water in the porus tarmac or poor
quality tar loosing its adhesion when it gets cold?

If the latter then salted roads would make no difference.

 

From what I read the other day (1), the former as once the water
freezes it expands and then does the damage.

(1) And if I read it on the net, it must therefore be true.

 

doesn't the wet grit act as a grinding paste to exacerbate the problem?

 

It gets quite interesting when they grit the main road through the New
Forest near us because all the cattle crowd onto it licking at the road
surface.

I'm not sure it's molasses though: it's well documented that animals
like the nutrients in the salt. Salt licks have been around for years.

 

Despite its name, I don't think a salt lick is 100% NaCl.

 

I'm not entirely sure why salt shouldn't be regarded as a nutrient, either.

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there are two: sodium ions and chloride ions

 

You know the oft mentioned argument around how language is supposed to
be flexible and evolve?

"Salt" in this context isn't simply NaC1 it's used to convey a number
of minerals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_lick

HTH.

 

took a blunt brush and painted...

If grit is just chunky salt then it'd grind down to a powder and give you a
nice smooth road.

Mmmmm... smoooooth...