Surface Dressing

[thirdcrank]

Some actions serve more than one purpose. I seem to remember hearing anti-skid as one purpose of top dressing, though I have no reference.

All I'm saying is that there are two different but similar things. One involves making the approaches to places like pedestrian crossings skid-resistant or more tolerant of bad driving if you prefer and this is likely to be done on roads which are completely resurfaced: top planed off etc. The other is a cheap way of prolonging the life of a road by sealing it with a layer of what I've referred to as tar but which I believe is more properly called bitumen, which is then embeded with chippings to restore the skid resistance. As the former is done on relatively small areas, it's generally done with a lot more precision. As the latter is chosen because of it's cheapness, there's no point in making it more expensive. Hence, the chippings have traditionally been sloshed about with little attention to detail, hence the "drifts" which, as has been pointed out, may persist indefinitely.

And I do think AndyK has a good point.

[Psamathe]

Of course the camouflaged potholes and drifts of loose gravel that others have mentioned above are much the worst effects of top dressing. But I also find that it perceptibly increases rolling resistance......

I've noticed that on my bike. And thus I assume it would probably affect motor vehicles in the same way to some extent. And whilst riding on a dressed surface I have wondered about car mpg figures on the same surface and any impact on greenhouse emissions caused but the surface.

Ian

[AndyK]

"Stan" is used as a synonym for the Lord of the Flies deliberately.

Yes indeed. I thought it was an old Usenet joke (supposedly a way round the crude naughty-word filters of Olden Days) but I can't find any evidence for that now, so I may have made it up.

"Lord of the Flies" the book is also the work of Stan, of course. But I digress.

[reohn2]

Of course the camouflaged potholes and drifts of loose gravel that others have mentioned above are much the worst effects of top dressing. But I also find that it perceptibly increases rolling resistance......

I've noticed that on my bike. And thus I assume it would probably affect motor vehicles in the same way to some extent. And whilst riding on a dressed surface I have wondered about car mpg figures on the same surface and any impact on greenhouse emissions caused but the surface.

Ian

I believe in the pro peloton UK roads are referred to as heavy(slow)due to the abundance of chip n seal used thereon

[mjr]

Do they ever surface dress motorways?

[thirdcrank]

... Yes indeed. I thought it was an old Usenet joke (supposedly a way round the crude naughty-word filters of Olden Days) but I can't find any evidence for that now, so I may have made it up. ....

I claim little knowledge of social media usage and I'm generally stuck in an earlier age of telly ads. In this case

How do you do it, Stanley?

It's Tankard(?) that makes me excel,
After one I do anything well.

It says something about advertising that I can't be sure I've got the right beer.

Re Lord of the Flies it's a very perceptive work IMO, which predates the modern concerns about bullying.

[Psamathe]

Do they ever surface dress motorways?

No point as cyclists are not allowed on motorways so surface dressing a motorway would punish zero cyclists. And surface dressing seems little more than a means to discourage cyclists.

Ian

[reohn2]

Do they ever surface dress motorways?

No,but it's a different type of heavier duty tarmac with 25mm stone set in the surface,it's the same on some fast trunk roads and dual carriageways,or at east it used to be but I believe it's changed now according to so e EU directive or other.I remember reading something about it years ago

[Mike Sales]

Do they ever surface dress motorways?

No,but it's a different type of heavier duty tarmac with 25mm stone set in the surface,it's the same on some fast trunk roads and dual carriageways

If that is the surface of which I have a mental picture it is much preferable to surface dressing.

[reohn2]

Do they ever surface dress motorways?

No,but it's a different type of heavier duty tarmac with 25mm stone set in the surface,it's the same on some fast trunk roads and dual carriageways

If that is the surface of which I have a mental picture it is much preferable to surface dressing.

Yep I concur with that

[Pete Owens]

I know nothing about tarring and feathering except that it's not cycle-friendly in any shape or form. AFAIK, it's a cheap but not very cheerful way of eking out the life of an ageing carriageway by waterproofing it with tar, then giving the tar an anti-skid surface.

In the same way that regularly painting your window frames is more cost effective than letting them rot - attempting to patch up the holes with polyfiller then replacing them completely when the holes become too numerous.

As cyclists we suffer more than most from potholes - they are a danger to us rather than a nuisance. Potholes originate from water seepage when the top waterproof layer of a road fails. We should welcome authorities that carry out routine maintenance to restore the waterproofing before those roads degenerate.

Unfortunaley, loose surplus chippings create the most skiddy surface possible without ice or spilt oil.

If the job is done badly this can be the case.

When properly done fine grade chippings are rolled into the surface rather than scattered and left to be rolled in by passing traffic hopefully complying with a very low speed limit.

[Mike Sales]

When properly done fine grade chippings are rolled into the surface rather than scattered and left to be rolled in by passing traffic hopefully complying with a very low speed limit.

As the late Ian Dury sang, "This is what we find, The hope that springs eternal, springs right up your ....

[Psamathe]

I know nothing about tarring and feathering except that it's not cycle-friendly in any shape or form. AFAIK, it's a cheap but not very cheerful way of eking out the life of an ageing carriageway by waterproofing it with tar, then giving the tar an anti-skid surface.

In the same way that regularly painting your window frames is more cost effective than letting them rot - attempting to patch up the holes with polyfiller then replacing them completely when the holes become too numerous.

As cyclists we suffer more than most from potholes - they are a danger to us rather than a nuisance. Potholes originate from water seepage when the top waterproof layer of a road fails. We should welcome authorities that carry out routine maintenance to restore the waterproofing before those roads degenerate.

Unfortunaley, loose surplus chippings create the most skiddy surface possible without ice or spilt oil.

If the job is done badly this can be the case.

When properly done fine grade chippings are rolled into the surface rather than scattered and left to be rolled in by passing traffic hopefully complying with a very low speed limit.

Irrespective as to how it should be done, as cyclists we can only really deal with what is done (in the real world) and around me there are two major issues: lose fine chippings everywhere and that the road in not repaired before being dressed so you end-up with the most horrific surface that really conflicts with the use of a saddle. When done it becomes a uniform matt'ish grey making it impossible to see the excessive lumps and bumps ...

I end-up reporting significant numbers of new potholes sometimes within weeks of a surface dressing being applied.

Ian

[thirdcrank]

It seems from the tiny sample represented by the posters this thread that standards vary across the country.

Austerity in its various forms means less is spent on highway maintenance. A two-fold problem with surface dressing is that it may be used on a road which needs completely re-laying and it may be carried out to a sloppy standard with "drifts" of surplus chippings a particular danger for cyclists.

I can only suggest reporting specific problems like unswept chippings and lobbying about maintenance budgets.

I've no idea if it's still the case but once upon a time, highway authorities made annual bids for central funding and these included reports on the state of the local road network. One of the ways of measuring that is to use equipment which tests how much resilience - bounciness(?) - remains in the carriageway. I believe those bids increasingly fall on deaf ears.

[Psamathe]

....
A two-fold problem with surface dressing is that it may be used on a road which needs completely re-laying......

A couple of years ago I stopped and chatted with a team doing surface dressing on a single track rural road and they were saying about how this road was not a proper road, "nothing underneath it" and how the surface dressing wouldn't last 10 minutes (and within a few weeks I was reporting a dangerous (deeper than 4") pothole). They people doing it knew it was a waste of time but their company was being paid to do it, they kept their jobs, etc. so they were happy, just surprised at the road being done.

One of our local Councillors (County) was "boasting" to a Parish Council about the number of miles of road surface dressed in their parish which made me wonder if it was partly to give the appearance of doing something (even if that something was a waste of time) - along the lines of "aren't we doing a lot, working really hard, making the money go such a long way ..." (albeit wasted on roads that are unsuited).

Ian