big chainring 

Watch the patched cracks in roads. As the temps climb that patch gets soft and can catch your wheel. Local rider went down recently, ended up in hospital with broken ribs and a punctured lung. Be careful out there.

Hondo Gravel

Yup just like our county maintenance. Just shovel some asphalt in the hole and watch the heat melt it into a pile a gue. Avoid them or just like you said or a possible wreck or getting the bike full of tar like substances.

bikemig 

Yep, this is one reason I like riding with 32c tires. There are some reasonably lightweight ones out there but yeah this can be dangerous.

BobbyG

At lunchtime Thursday I saw a nice cafe-style motorcycle on its side in a parking lot. A closer inspection showed the kickstand was down, plus a kickstand-sized hole in the soft, gooey patch of a pavement crack.

I never thought of catching a tire in one while riding, but now I will.

Shimagnolo

That happened to me once when I parked an almost-new HD Sportster in a recently-paved parking lot. Grrr....

Soon after buying my current "adventure" bike, I realized it was impossible to park it on anything other than pavement, due to the tiny kickstand pad. I solved the problem with a large aftermarket pad from a Chinese seller on eBay.

DrIsotope

I understand the "cracks in road" part, but the "patch" part is where you lose me. Must be a regional thing.

JohnDThompson 

AKA "tar snakes." They can grab your wheel and pull it around to follow the crack, if you're not paying attention. Wider tires can help, but even motorcycles have problems with them.

Climb14er

Yes indeed... been riding motorcycles for 47 years and on a curvy road, you can slide in the tar snakes so quickly... and go down just as fast. Same with road bikes!

KraneXL

Photo. I have no idea what you're talking about. Never saw a "soft patch" in the road.

FiftySix

I haven't had much time on tar snakes with a bicycle, but plenty of time with motorcycles on country roads. They sure can make your front tire wash out a bit while leaned over in corner on a motorcycle.

canklecat

Yup, common problem in Texas, although less so since most road maintenance has switched to chipseal. The polymer-modified bitumen dries quicker, harder and lasts longer. The stuff stays hard even in 100+F Texas heat. The downside is rough rides with skinny tires.

I don't worry about it so much during group rides with fast experienced riders, but on casual group rides I leave plenty of room all around because inexperienced riders tend to ride along or on top of patched long cracks running parallel with the direction of travel. Usually they get away with it but occasionally someone's wheel will catch a ledge or bit of cracked pavement that hasn't been patched recently. Down they go, along with anyone nearby. One reason why I almost always prefer my fat tire hybrid on casual group rides.

Generally you can see those long cracks clearly so I don't know why so many cyclists ride on top of them. Unfortunately the success of the polymer bitumen for chipseal and patching makes people complacent and they overlook the possibility that some rural counties may still use older asphaltic treatments that take longer to dry and will soften in heat.

79pmooney

I make it a practice to always cross cracks, sealed, filled or otherwise, at an angle. I will even steer away from a crack I am very close to just so I an come back and cross it aggressively. (I dropped my 2-year-old Peter Mooney's front tire into a crack in the shade of a bridge handrail and went over the bars. A rude wake-up call.)

A little secret - the best tire tread to climb out of cracks, ruts and back onto the road is the ribbed tread of sewups 40 years ago. The fine lines of tread that go lengthwise around the tire. The tread that looks the same at 40 mph as at a standstill. Sadly it disappeared for about 25 years. Vittoria has brought it back on their best tires, the G+ and G2.0. Not cheap, but that tread is as good as I remembered it to be. I hope it becomes popular, that other manufacturers start using it and Vittoria take it down to their cheaper models. 40 years ago it was commonplace.

Ben

Rje58

I went down hard back in April on just such a crack - I was going in to a slow turn and wham! the tires just went out from under me. I was sore for a week or ten days but the real pain was from the $210 urgent care bill - it caused a big hematoma on my arm and the doctor order x-rays to make sure my wrist wasn't cracked. I guess I was "lucky" to get out for $210...?

I call them snake trails, they will bite you!