The Road Condition Warning thread

Luxman · 23-06-2021 2:58pm

magicbastarder wrote: »

ah yes, was out that was recently. at least it's not tarry, unlike the stretch i had to deal with that i mentioned above, near the ward.
had to get petrol out to clean the tar off the bike.

Ah no, not the petrolðŸ˜©. Out with the winter hack so.

Wishbone Ash · 23-06-2021 3:07pm

This road near Julianstown (Co Meath) is probably the worst surface I've cycled on since the 1980's. It not a case of avoiding the potholes but more like deciding which one to cycle into and out of. As well as the multiple holes, there's also loads of loose gravel and larger stones. Even on the Strava route maker, it comes up as 'off road' although it is a narrow public road with grass along the center.

https://www.strava.com/segments/19687574

This one near Balscadden and Stamullen is also pretty bad especially when descending.

https://www.strava.com/segments/24641481

magicbastarder · 23-06-2021 3:38pm

oh, i forgot - i tried a little back road near garristown and it's uncycleable. it's on the map as cycleable but it's really just pounded hardcore.
it looks OK in the google street view imagery, but it's a mess now.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.5639883,-6.4405656,3a,75y,58.95h,68.06t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1soctKmyjzsIj5h5_FE8BrLw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

07Lapierre · 23-06-2021 3:42pm

magicbastarder wrote: »

oh, i forgot - i tried a little back road near garristown and it's uncycleable. it's on the map as cycleable but it's really just pounded hardcore.
it looks OK in the google street view imagery, but it's a mess now.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.5639883,-6.4405656,3a,75y,58.95h,68.06t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1soctKmyjzsIj5h5_FE8BrLw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

I was driving to a race once and my car satnav sent me down that road track!

[Deleted User] · 23-06-2021 3:43pm

I'd know that one WA mentioned in Julianstown as Beabeg lane. Have it in the back of my mind they resurfaced the very start of it on the Beamore side recently, can't imagine they did the whole thing????

Maybe to lure unsuspecting folks like WA on a road bike to take a ramble up it

The google streetview doesn't do it justice.

loyatemu · 23-06-2021 3:48pm

Wicklow: the road from Callow Hill into NTMK is in absolute sh|te; very hairy descending. We decided to try the parallel road here on Sunday, it's even worse (and much steeper which is a bad combination).

Plastik · 23-06-2021 5:02pm

Mad road. You'd wish they'd just sort it right once and for all instead of the biannual waste of money freshly chipping it.

Wildly Boaring · 23-06-2021 5:33pm

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

This road near Julianstown (Co Meath) is probably the worst surface I've cycled on since the 1980's. It not a case of avoiding the potholes but more like deciding which one to cycle into and out of. As well as the multiple holes, there's also loads of loose gravel and larger stones. Even on the Strava route maker, it comes up as 'off road' although it is a narrow public road with grass along the center.

https://www.strava.com/segments/19687574

It's piss poor.
I went up it this year to see if it's as bad ad I thought last year.

Yep

Wishbone Ash · 23-06-2021 5:45pm

magicbastarder wrote: »

oh, i forgot - i tried a little back road near garristown and it's uncycleable. it's on the map as cycleable but it's really just pounded hardcore.
it looks OK in the google street view imagery, but it's a mess now.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.5639883,-6.4405656,3a,75y,58.95h,68.06t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1soctKmyjzsIj5h5_FE8BrLw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

I got lost during an audax a few years ago and ended up on that road in the dark. As if that wasn't bad enough, I had to deal with a difficult dog whom I couldn't really see properly.

Mercian Pro brought us down than road during a club ride last year and we had a couple of punctures in the group.

Macy0161 · 23-06-2021 5:50pm

Callow Hill has been in a state a couple of years. I thought it'd be on the list for this year, as most of the works still on-going seem to be at the filter beds at this stage.

sy_flembeck · 23-06-2021 10:15pm

loyatemu wrote: »

the road from Ashford to Hunters Hotel, which had a lovely smooth surface on it has been chipped - it's baffling how they choose which roads to do.

That beautiful surface. I knew they'd ruin it eventually. I often even endured the ordeal of the coast road between Killloughter and Hunter's just to go on that stretch:mad:

sy_flembeck · 23-06-2021 10:18pm

Macy0161 wrote: »

Callow Hill has been in a state a couple of years. I thought it'd be on the list for this year, as most of the works still on-going seem to be at the filter beds at this stage.

Descending Callow is actually dangerous at this stage. Dreadful surface and many, many entrances both sides

Seth Brundle · 28-06-2021 11:39am

Kildare County Council are resurfacing the Celbridge to Ardclough road all week.
Today they are working on the section from the Lyons turn to the train bridge but I think given they're closing the road for a week, they will do the entire road despite much of it being fine (arund the train bridge did need resurfacing).
Expect plenty of loose gravel along the way next week.

https://twitter.com/KildareCoCo/status/1409409240582610944

Macy0161 · 28-06-2021 12:20pm

The lovely smooth tarmac on the Roundwood to Newtownmountkennedy road also chip and tar to at least the top of Slaughter (I came up Kilmurry, so don't know about Slaughter). It's a busy road, so well bedded in the car tracks, just the corncrake turn that was slightly dodgy.

sy_flembeck wrote: »

Descending Callow is actually dangerous at this stage. Dreadful surface and many, many entrances both sides

Ended up doing it twice on Saturday - once solo on the way to the club spin, second time on the club spin. More sketchy on the club spin, just as the volume of cars up it was more.

Don't Chute! · 28-06-2021 1:50pm

sy_flembeck wrote: »

That beautiful surface. I knew they'd ruin it eventually. I often even endured the ordeal of the coast road between Killloughter and Hunter's just to go on that stretch:mad:

Oh man! That stretch is disgraceful alright. Which is a shame as that road from Kilcoole to Rathnew is a lovely little spin. I live on the Kilcoole road in Greystones so it’s my main route south.

Don't Chute! · 28-06-2021 1:55pm

Macy0161 wrote: »

The lovely smooth tarmac on the Roundwood to Newtownmountkennedy road also chip and tar to at least the top of Slaughter (I came up Kilmurry, so don't know about Slaughter). It's a busy road, so well bedded in the car tracks, just the corncrake turn that was slightly dodgy.

Ended up doing it twice on Saturday - once solo on the way to the club spin, second time on the club spin. More sketchy on the club spin, just as the volume of cars up it was more.

Went for a walk on the Spink yesterday and drove back over Slaughter Hill. I was astonished to see that beautiful tarmac surface chipped. Why on earth could they not have left it as it was?!

Wildly Boaring · 28-06-2021 3:25pm

Don't Chute! wrote: »

Went for a walk on the Spink yesterday and drove back over Slaughter Hill. I was astonished to see that beautiful tarmac surface chipped. Why on earth could they not have left it as it was?!

The lovely tarmac is usually dense bitumen macadam (DBM). It ultimately has terrible skid resistance and was a major contributing factor in this tragedy
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/five-teenage-girls-killed-in-meath-school-bus-crash-1.1177723

Generally if it's an R or L road and gets a lovely smooth tarmac finish expect the chips within a month or so.

N and M roads (and brand new R roads) get a different, much more expensive final layer like Hot Rolled Asphalt (HRA). But that's not going to be feasible for general upkeep of R and L roads

ARX · 28-06-2021 4:59pm

Wildly Boaring wrote: »

The lovely tarmac is usually dense bitumen macadam (DBM). It ultimately has terrible skid resistance and was a major contributing factor in this tragedy
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/five-teenage-girls-killed-in-meath-school-bus-crash-1.1177723

I came off my motorbike on a roundabout that had been left as DBM for months. It was so slippery I had difficulty getting to my feet. I complained to a TD (the only way to things done in Ireland) and two days later they were out putting the wearing course down.

If you see things like manhole covers protruding from the road or unusually deep kerbs, that's a sign that you are on the DBM layer. The wearing course hasn't been laid yet.

Macy0161 · 28-06-2021 5:05pm

That's fair enough but the two stretches around Roundwood, and Hunters, were done last summer iirc. I suppose a few "Temporary Road Surface" cardboard signs is enough legal cover for WCC.

magicbastarder · 30-06-2021 9:46am

it's only a short stretch, but as you drop from the top of snowtown towards the west (i.e. towards fourknocks) the road surface there for one or two hundred metres has deteriorated bizarrely quickly, as in visibly so in the last month or two. multiple potholes each of which would total a rim if caught at speed i reckon.

magicbastarder · 30-06-2021 9:57am

also, given there has been a lot of resurfacing around NCD recently, when are they going to get to the ballyboughal-blake's cross road? it's getting close to CX territory in places.

jrar · 30-06-2021 11:21am

Wildly Boaring wrote: »

The lovely tarmac is usually dense bitumen macadam (DBM). It ultimately has terrible skid resistance and was a major contributing factor in this tragedy
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/five-teenage-girls-killed-in-meath-school-bus-crash-1.1177723

Generally if it's an R or L road and gets a lovely smooth tarmac finish expect the chips within a month or so.

N and M roads (and brand new R roads) get a different, much more expensive final layer like Hot Rolled Asphalt (HRA). But that's not going to be feasible for general upkeep of R and L roads

Hmmm, must tell those French, Swiss, Spanish etc. road engineers that they're doing it all wrong with their billiard table finishes :cool::D

Wildly Boaring · 30-06-2021 1:56pm

jrar wrote: »

Hmmm, must tell those French, Swiss, Spanish etc. road engineers that they're doing it all wrong with their billiard table finishes :cool::D

They will be a wearing course finish HRA, SMA, AC-WC.
Substantially more expensive than spray and chip.

If county council roads engineers had the budget our roads would also be billiard tables.
Most of them are good engineers doing their best with very limited budgets.

devonp · 30-06-2021 2:02pm

nice new shiny tarmac on the Ardclough to Lyons jct rd (and filled in the dodgy potholey section on the NE heading side), prob get chipped fairly soon- although the rd up to Kilteel X was left for a while before chipping :rolleyes:

magicbastarder · 30-06-2021 2:38pm

Wildly Boaring wrote: »

If county council roads engineers had the budget our roads would also be billiard tables.
Most of them are good engineers doing their best with very limited budgets.

they're still at the mercy of shoddy contractors though i guess?

ARX · 30-06-2021 2:44pm

Wildly Boaring wrote: »

They will be a wearing course finish HRA, SMA, AC-WC.
Substantially more expensive than spray and chip.

If county council roads engineers had the budget our roads would also be billiard tables.
Most of them are good engineers doing their best with very limited budgets.

Somewhat off-topic, but in Dublin at any rate, much of the damage to the roads is due to the fact that any clown with a consaw is allowed to wreck them. Obviously the councils are either unwilling or unable to enforce proper reinstatement.

IME Eastern Europe, which isn't exactly awash with cash, has better roads than Ireland, both in urban and rural areas. Often far better. I dream of the day when our roads are up to Slovenian standards.

Wildly Boaring · 30-06-2021 2:46pm

The main issue is the funding.

If all you have is the money to repair the worst potholes and give a lash of spray and chips, well that's all you do.

Unfortunately this means you'll probably be back doing the same thing in 3 or 4 years time.

A bit more money maybe you do a layer of tarmac and then spray and chip.
Get you a bit more time but fundamentally the foundations of the road are probably still a pile of ****e.

So say you rip out the whole road and rebuild from good ground. Probably last 50 years.
BUT you won't have the money for any more roads in the area for abut 2 years.

The shoddy contractor is probably less of a problem then the fact that the work being done is a sticking plaster......

Seth Brundle · 30-06-2021 2:47pm

devonp wrote: »

nice new shiny tarmac on the Ardclough to Lyons jct rd (and filled in the dodgy potholey section on the NE heading side), prob get chipped fairly soon- although the rd up to Kilteel X was left for a while before chipping :rolleyes:

The worst part of the road was on the train bridge especially as you approached it from Celbridge. Hopefully that is all nice and smooth now and I'll try and get a half decent time there

magicbastarder · 30-06-2021 2:50pm

ah, it's just on a couple of occasions i've seen jobs where the aftermath is worse than what the road was like before. someone resurfaced a couple of km of the old N2 just north of coolquay a few years back and it was a definite disimprovement on the previous road surface.

Wildly Boaring · 30-06-2021 2:51pm

ARX wrote: »

Somewhat off-topic, but in Dublin at any rate, much of the damage to the roads is due to the fact that any clown with a consaw is allowed to wreck them. Obviously the councils are either unwilling or unable to enforce proper reinstatement.

IME Eastern Europe, which isn't exactly awash with cash, has better roads than Ireland, both in urban and rural areas. Often far better. I dream of the day when our roads are up to Slovenian standards.

Fully agree.
Often this is the council's mess up too.
There is a road opening licence process.

You apply for licence (pay a fee of course and a deposit!!) and do your road opening.
Generally reinstatement on an R or L road should be allowed settle for approx 6 months.

Council should then INSPECT, ensure road is fixed to correct standard and then final surfacing done.

From what I see this inspection and final surface is rarely followed up.
(try that ****e south of cork city and see where you get)

The Road Condition Warning thread

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