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Dangerous potholes



 
 
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Old October 4th 18, 01:50 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Andre Jute[_2_]
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Default Dangerous potholes

On Wednesday, October 3, 2018 at 10:36:46 PM UTC+1, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, October 3, 2018 at 9:56:45 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Tuesday, October 2, 2018 at 2:34:49 PM UTC-7, Andre Jute wrote:
On Tuesday, October 2, 2018 at 8:42:45 PM UTC+1, Theodore Heise wrote:
On Sun, 30 Sep 2018 08:00:18 -0700 (PDT),
Andre Jute wrote:
I have often mentioned that our roads here in Ireland are not
too good, and published photos of potholes of amazing size. Now
a woman cyclist has been seriously hurt by one of these
potholes, and is undergoing brain surgery as I write this.

I did a ride in the rain a few weeks ago, and rolled to a stop
with my front wheel coming up on what I thought was a puddle. It
turned out to be a pothole, and was deep enough that my forward
roll was brought to an abrupt halt. The bike stopped short, but I
did not. Luckily, I had slowed to the point that I only partly
went over the handlebars, going as much (if not more) to the side.
I came out with only bruises--to my body and ego both.

--
Ted Heise West Lafayette, IN, USA

Oddly enough, I probably know the pothole that hurt two cyclists, one very badly. I routinely ride through potholes at speed (though not at that particular place where I treat the crossroads with respect by slowing), but I run huge 622x60mm tyres operated at only 2 bar (29psi) on a bike with geometry designed not to be disturbed by any obstacle at whatever speed on alpine descents, and I suspect these riders who got hurt were on high-pressure narrow tyres and possibly on smaller wheels on bikes designed to be nippy. I ride every day over a small area relatively near my house, so I know every pothole and have a memory map of it, as I often ride at night and in the rain (I live in Ireland, where it rains often and long). Of course, if the pothole grew since I last rode over it... I described elsewhere how I came a cropper one morning before dawn riding on a road of which I knew every inch, except I didn't know that a heavy harvest machine or tractor or truck had broken off a piece of the road where I would ride to within an inch of the edge of the tarmac: I crashed into the ditch at such speed that a vintage block pedal's axle was snapped right off when we fell off the road. My helmet saved my head from the thorny hedge on the other side of the ditch, but the rest of me was punctured and bruised as I barrel-rolled along the hedge. I ride slower there now.


Potholes are uncomfortable but cracks in the road parallel to the direction of travel can be deadly. My bone doctor was descending Mt. Diablo with a friend. His friend caught his wheel in a crack and fell, broke his neck and is now a paraplegic. Two months later I was descending the same road and caught my wheel in it but was able to ride it out.

A week ago I was riding up Foothill Rd. in Pleasanton and not paying a lot of attention to the road because of passing traffic and caught my wheel in one. I did a slow motion fall while trying to maintain my balance and the wheel finally popped out of the crack at the last second and I caught balance.

I reported it to the County but it remains to be seen if and when they act upon it.


I was riding on Mt Hamilton many years back while visiting family in California and about killed myself on crack-seal. California buys the version that gets extra-slippery when hot. You lean into a corner, hit that sh** and slip-out. More recently on a visit, I was riding down HWY 9 and got the same sensation. I used to do that descent with no brakes except for maybe the top two turns, but I got so freaked-out, I braked on all the turns.

Around here, you get wet pavement, moss, the usual road crap, but not much crack seal. The only place where I encounter cracks parallel to the road is here, and they're easy to avoid: https://bikeportland.org/wp-content/...82-800x600.jpg

-- Jay Beattie.


Tramlines. They're set into a channel in the road, and when the road is retarmacced, the channel gets deeper. I didn't cycle all that much in Melbourne, probably because every time I tussled with the omnipresent tramline gutters, I came a cropper, and broke the rim besides.

Andre Jute
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