Originally Posted by
base2
The smooth freshly paved roads our grandparent paid for, laid out in the patriotic fervor of the late 1940's, 50's, & 60's that gave rise to the bike-boom years are over. A gravel bike is just the right tool for the job in our crumbling infrastructure environment nowadays. Might as well embrace reality...most 3rd world roads are gravel too.
Radical acceptance.
Word. My wife and I ride gravel bikes, plus-sized tire bikes, and modified MTB's here because the paved roads are so bad. It actually a bit of relief when the road turns to dirt sometimes. There just isnt any money for roads and proper maintenance. We pay no income taxes here in NH, but the property taxes are pretty high. Out of that, the school systems suck about 70% right off the top of any tax collected. The rest gets split between police/fire/rescue and roads. There is about 1200 people in my town right now, including all of the children. Divide that up into tax-paying households, and you see there isnt much of a pool of money to draw from. So we have to ride rutted, potholed, narrow, ill-kept roads. If I'm training, it takes six miles to get to the state highway, where the pavement is smooth-enough to be able to focus on your ride rather than beating yourself up.