gthomson

So I've started to get outside and do some more riding now that winter appears to have moved on ( fingers crossed so as to not jinx it) but noticed the conditions of the roads are terrible. Not sure it's because of the harsh winter that most of us experienced over a certain line of latitude or what but a real game of dodge the pot hole, or broken tarmac. Maybe I'm out a little too early and the municipality hasn't got out to do their repairs yet.

Will probably not take out my road bike yet until things improve, otherwise I will just be asking for flats.

Clyde1820

Many roads are fairly awful in my area, too. Not a bad winter, really. But pothole filler on filler on filler, over years, and a road ends up a bit ratty.

Got to love 26x2.3" or larger tires, for such situations. About the only thing I'll run, these days, with how the general condition of roads is going.

I don't blame you, for deciding on other activities for a little while, until the roads are tolerable. Hitting a hole at 20mph can be a nasty experience.

rumrunn6

yeah roads in my area have lots of junk in the shoulders & the winter damage like cracks & potholes are awful. maybe that's why I gravitate toward the paved trails or forest more & more

xroadcharlie

Bad roads are more likely caused by multiple freeze/Thaw cycles, No so much a harsh (cold) winter. It may be with a very cold winter road damage is actually reduced. But then you have to deal with frozen water pipes bursting in old neighborhoods if they haven't been updated.

I'm usually riding slow enough on my comfort bike to avoid potholes. But once not paying attention I ended up striking a tall curb. I stood on the pedals and jerked the front wheel over and let the rear strike at speed, This worked well enough thanks to the 2.0" (50 mm) wide tires. As pointed out in another post those wide tires allow riding in almost any situation we typically encounter. Great for wet grass and soft shoulders too.

Bald Paul

I grew up in Massachusetts, where spring was known as "pothole season". Some of those suckers were so big, they would swallow your car tire (I was an auto tech at the time, they were great for business!)
Now I'm living in SC. It's so funny to me when we're riding along in a group, and someone out front yells "HOLE!". As I ride past the 6" diameter, 1" deep imperfection in the pavement, I just chuckle.

Bearhawker

Here on PEI the roads are in nasty shape at the edges.

Most (all) of my riding is in rural areas where they have a deadly combination of not paving the shoulders and dump trucks (primarily but others too) that can't stay in their lane so they drift off the edge and break it. Some roads are getting paved shoulders but it as a slow process and not consistent even on the same highway.

Worse, the "solution" in most cases is a make-work project to add gravel to the shoulders to the level of the road - I'm guessing they think that takes the pressure off the edges. What t really does is create a worse problem with the gravel getting thrown up onto the road affecting both cyclists and windshields) with no substantial effect on the longevity of the edges.

If the shoulders were paved the roads would last substantially longer. It would also let cyclists move out the lane most of the time to make it better for all.

It's bad enough here that it's a problem for me and I ride a fat bike. lol

Our law here states that cyclists have to stay as far to the right as practical but sometimes that puts me in the center of the lane (or further left!) to avoid a wheel-grabbing hole.

Iride01 

Usually I go around potholes. We have lots of them too. I didn't know I was supposed to stay inside when potholes are out and about.

79pmooney

I lived in and rode/trained/raced around Boston in the '70s. Sewup wheels. For winter I rode a Peugeot UO-8 fix gear, cheap 400+ gram rims and cyclocross tires. By midwinter I'd dropped the wheels into enough deep potholes that that once round shape was now an irregular polygon. (Fully appreciated my Mafac Racers which brake fairly effectively on random surfaces.) Edit: All of use hardcore winter riders had rim pullers, formal or home made. Devices to pull rims back to round. Some of us got a lot of practice. This was back when aluminum rims were so soft you could bend them repeatedly with little risk of cracking. That hasn't been true for a few decades. The official arrival of spring was when I cut out the salt corroded spokes and laced on new rims with my summer training tires.

The secret was sewups. They rarely pinch flat even on pothole hits that dent the rim to large percentages of an inch. And since I might be running 50 psi or less, that happened quite frequently. (Snow and ice. I dropped the pressure the whatever was needed to stay upright.) I didn't own a car so not riding the bike simply wasn't an option, never mind that I was a racer for some of those years. Re-building wheels was like changing out the car's snow tires. Took more time, was physically easier and back then cost about the same.

Daniel4

CAA recently released a survey asking people to report the worse streets with potholes in the GTA. In a tv interviews the spokesperson mentioned that it's dangerous for cyclists who have to swerve around them and risk getting into a collision with traffic.

It's nice that CAA acknowledges the presence of road cyclists.

Chuck M 

My situation is a little different. The worst roads on may favorite route have been totally replaced and widened, but the weather is still either too cold or too windy for my preference on the days I have an opportunity to ride.

jppe

I was riding in a group and the folks in front of me didn’t point one out. Hit it solid, flatted the front tire and took a chunk out of my carbon rim

It took a chunk out of my rim and damaged the tire sidewalls too.

gthomson

Aw man, that kind of stuff would make me pretty mad.

CliffordK

My old street in Portland had bad potholes in the mid 1990's. Now, nearly 30 years later, the potholes have just gotten bigger. Every once in a while a neighbor will dump some gravel into the largest of the potholes, although it is getting to the point where there are more potholes than street.

It is actually a popular street for people to walk, and even some bicycles because nobody drives fast.

wolfchild

Bigger tires seems to work well for me when riding on streets with potholes.

rutan74

Yes, I moved from Mass some 18 years ago to SC. Country roads here are incredible. Unfortunately, I have become a road wuss as any imperfection, like alligator asphalt gets me annoyed now. Of course I then think about all those holes up in Mass and Western Pa. How soon we forget what bad pavement really is like. Ohh, and the sand too. Don't miss that either.

john

Bald Paul

I had forgotten about the sand! That was always fun, especially after the so called 'street sweepers' went by and moved it all to the side of the road. You know, the part where you were expected to ride.

Ogsarg

If I didn't ride on bad roads, it would rule out all but the heavily trafficked roads. What do you consider bad pavement?

Biker395 

Yikes.

A friend of mine hit a pothole a little over a week ago. It was in a shadow under a freeway overpass, and she didn't see it.

She broke a lot of bones, and got herself a very serious TBI. She was in the ICU for almost a week, and at one point, failed to recognize family members and was tearing out IVs and wires they were using to monitor her. She is now transferred to a rehab facility and learning to walk again. :-(

I only mention it because potholes really really suck. This sport we love can be ridiculously dangerous. You got off lucky!

CliffordK

It is not the potholes that bother me. It is the road cracks that have taken me down on at least two occasions.

One in Missouri (made my Wolber wheels Wobble).

And, the latest one was just south of Portland. I avoided a storm drain, but didn't realize there was a gap in the pavement next to the drain. Flatted my tire, and a month or so later I discovered a spoke pulling through the rim.

The Missouri one also hyper-extended my elbow which always takes too long to recover.

ofajen

I’m fond of saying that two-inch tires mean never having to say you’re sorry.

These days it’s actually 2.2” tires, but still…

Of course, exactly none of my rides are road-only, so having bigger tires seems obvious.

Otto

Carbonfiberboy 

There's a lot of talk on the interwebs these days about how one can run lower tire pressures than we used to back in the day. That makes a more comfortable ride, for sure. However, I set my tire pressures high enough that I don't get pinch flats on potholes and don't really care about a little vibration. Pump for the potholes, get out and ride. So on our tandem, rider weight 287, I pump 32mm tires to 90-95 lbs. On my single, 150 lbs,, I pump 23mm tires to 80 front, 100 rear. No pinch flats. Of course you can also avoid pinch flats by going tubeless or by bunny hopping the potholes, assuming you're can see the road ahead. More pressure also reduces rim damage.