Tar and chip resurfacing on busy A road?

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toontra
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Tar and chip resurfacing on busy A road?

Post by toontra »

Many cyclists in London (particularly north) will use the A104 as the fastest way of getting out to the lanes of Essex. I was mortified yesterday to see that several miles of the Epping New Road have been "resurfaced" with the notoriously shoddy tar & chip method.

The usual drifts of loose gravel all over the place, particularly along the left but also in lines between wheel tracks and in the centre. Pretty treacherous, but made all the worse by cars overtaking at well over the advertised temporary speed limit of 20mph - I know this for a fact as I was doing 20 for much of the time and I would judge the slowest car overtaking as doing at least 40mph, some far higher. So I was being pinged by flying gravel repeatedly.

The surface wasn't particularly bad before and it's certainly not much better now. In fact the sunken drain covers (all along the cycling line as usual) are even more sunken now as the surface level has been raised with no adjustment to the drains.

Firstly, I'm amazed that someone saw it appropriate to resurface a major, extremely busy A road in this manner.

Secondly, why bother putting up 20mph signs when there is absolutely no enforcement (e.g. temporary speed cameras)? It's almost as if they are saying "We have to put up these signs by law but please go ahead and completely ignore them - everyone else is!"
atlas_shrugged
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Re: Tar and chip resurfacing on busy A road?

Post by atlas_shrugged »

We had the same done on the A10 just south of Cranebridge. It was a slight variant to the normal tar and then loose chipseal which they just leave to bed in. After a few days they sprayed a kind of resin formulation on top. I would say the surface now is quite good. How long the layers will stay in place before they start peeling off is unknown.
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Mick F
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Re: Tar and chip resurfacing on busy A road?

Post by Mick F »

They did it on the A388 a few months ago, and previously on the A390 in Devon, both near here on roads I cycle on a lot. I think they're going to do it on the A390 in the Cornish end soon.

I'm much happier them doing it on main well-used A roads because it beds in FAR quicker than on minor roads.
Both these roads I refer to, were fine to cycle on within a week.
Mick F. Cornwall
toontra
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Re: Tar and chip resurfacing on busy A road?

Post by toontra »

Mick F wrote:Both these roads I refer to, were fine to cycle on within a week.


Good to hear, Mick. Hopefully the same will apply here.

I had a response from an enquiry to Essex council. Apparently the sweeping of loose gravel has been delayed because the high temperatures mean the tar hasn't set, so the sweeping machine would take the whole lot away!
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The utility cyclist
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Re: Tar and chip resurfacing on busy A road?

Post by The utility cyclist »

Herts CC laid C&T over a newly laid and perfectly smooth section of road through the village, absolutely incredible they could bodge the one bit that was spot on with this utterly crude/rubbish method that is not financially sound nor safe. :evil:
JamesE
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Re: Tar and chip resurfacing on busy A road?

Post by JamesE »

I wonder when this work was done, as the entire Dunwich Dynamo went down the Epping New Road only a few days before the OP. I didn’t notice anything amiss, but it wouldn’t be the first time Essex council have created a dangerous road surface just days before a night-time ride involving thousands of cyclists :roll:
atoz
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Re: Tar and chip resurfacing on busy A road?

Post by atoz »

JamesE wrote:I wonder when this work was done, as the entire Dunwich Dynamo went down the Epping New Road only a few days before the OP. I didn’t notice anything amiss, but it wouldn’t be the first time Essex council have created a dangerous road surface just days before a night-time ride involving thousands of cyclists :roll:


Years ago I descended into Dentdale in Cumbria on the road from Newby Head when the road had been resurfaced with chippings. Scared the **** out of me. I was riding 23mm narrow sections at the time. Not an experience I'd wish to repeat..
kwackers
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Re: Tar and chip resurfacing on busy A road?

Post by kwackers »

They did it to a road near me, pretty much everyone ignored the 10mph speed limits which meant my shins were peppered to death by shrapnel as the cars kicked up the loose stones.

I still bear the scars 5 months later.
rmurphy195
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Re: Tar and chip resurfacing on busy A road?

Post by rmurphy195 »

The chippings are bad enough - but on one of the Birmingham - Oxford rides a few years back the weather was very hot - so hot that the tar melted through the stones. On the way downhill it was a tad slithery, on the way up the tyres stuck to the stuff making it very hard work for a codger like me! I even had a few spots of the stuff stuck to the top of my headgear.

In my motorbiking days this stuff was a disaster, especially if you were trying to keep reasonably smart while collecting insurance premiums door-to-door!
Brompton, Condor Heritage, creaky joints and thinning white (formerly grey) hair
""You know you're getting old when it's easier to ride a bike than to get on and off it" - quote from observant jogger !
DaveGos
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Re: Tar and chip resurfacing on busy A road?

Post by DaveGos »

I have mixed feeling on the subject. It can be definitely tricky for cyclists . I got stuck in some on a Tandem in a hot period , not good, and I do wonder there choice of the roads they use it for , which generally seems random to me , but here in Shropshire they have reduced the road budget by £10 m , thus I have not seen any roads done this year and we see the result , All roads are rougher and some are very very bad as we had some of the worst roads in the country even before the cuts and then we had extreme winter and summer. Shropshire being a large county with a small population and low business rates has one of the worst funding issues in England , the second you get over the Welsh border the roads are so obviously better
This method seems best to me good for sealing in utilty trenches , where most of the potholes start
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