| Author | Message | ||
     Sarodude |
I live up San Francisquito Canyon Rd just north of Los Angeles. Put simply, San Fran ain't a straight road. There are a couple of horse crossings painted on the road. When it rains, these painted crossings are STUPID SLICK. How about 5th gear wheelspin on a STOCK FXD? That doesn't bother me as much as the slide and ensuing oscillation from a couple of weeks ago. Seriously, do we need to introduce a danger just to warn us of a ludicrously infrequent occurrence? Besides, if a tire is slick there, I imagine shoes and horse hooves might be too. Just ridiculous. -Saro (Message edited by sarodude on December 19, 2007) | ||
| Jaydub |
i hear ya - we have these giant arrows on the road here, and they get very slick - on yellow i always downshift and go instead of stopping on those | ||
| Hexangler |
Worst of all is the steel plate covers over road work areas in the rain. | ||
| Birdy |
Ha move to Indiana...we got Amish Speed Bumps all over from their horses. Not only is it slick BUT stinky too! Oh if you dodge that watch out for the corn and beans on the pavement...real fun trick in a car, I hate to think of it on a bike. | ||
| Djkaplan |
I used to know a girl who was rep for a company that made road paint. She said she didn't like telling people she sold road paint for a living because it sounded whorish. Road paint... it does sound skanky. | ||
| Bill0351 |
I know when I go biking, the start of the trail is the "trail head." Do they call the place the road starts the "road head?" If she sold that? THAT would sound skanky! | ||
| Jaimec |
Those road markings are painted with a Teflon based paint. Eggs won't stick to 'em and neither do your tires. Unfortunately, they're a fact of life. The reason they're Teflon-based is to prevent dirt from accumulating and obscuring them, which would eliminate their purpose (you ARE supposed to see them, after all). Just stay off of 'em, and plan your braking and turning accordingly. | ||
| Sarodude |
Jaime- True, the markings probably need to be seen. What I'm talking about isn't a 3% loss in traction (this is SERIOUSLY slicker) - and apparently not all road paint is created equal. For example, today on the freeway, there were some large, white painted arrows marking the end of my lane. I was in 4th, it was wet, and I nailed it. I was WAY deeper in the powerband than in my previous example on the same bike. ROCK EFFING SOLID - and I was easily able to see the mark. The visibility argument is ludicrous to me. It's like saying that you'd give up wearing a helmet in order to wear a day glo orange baseball cap - when it's likely there's a way to paint the helmet day glo. For example, is there some texture that could be applied to this wet dog sh!t to make it less slippery when wet? Dry traction is NOT a problem - so that's sort of a clue. -Saro | ||
| Sparky |
Texture? You betcha there is. What if some good ole boys should take their pickups out to these road markings and lay down some serious rubber traction strips (burnouts, ssshhhhs!) across these new-fangled road markings in the dead of the night, if you know what I mean? Think drag strip starting line. I think that would tend to make them a little less slippery, ya think? Totally legal too, Overcome By Events is the applicable buzzword here. We gotcha covered. BadWeB to the rescue! | ||
| Bill0351 |
When I was a kid they replaced all the "SCHOOL" signs that were painted on the pavement. I remember that they were some sort of rough sandpaper textured reflective tape material. The only problem was that the neighborhood kids figured out that if you worked hard enough at it, you could peel the letters off. For a few months they would alternate from saying "CHOO" back to saying "SCHOOL" until the city gave up and repainted them. That was around 1979 I think? I bet they have stuff that sticks better now. It would be perfect for the sort of road signs you guys are talking about. It's a shame that it often takes an accident and a lawsuit to wake someone up to a problem like that. | ||
| Badlionsfan |
up on the new york thru way i've seen them when repainting stripes between the travel lanes and the exit lane. after it was painted, the were sprinkling a reflective material that has a gritty texture to it on the wet paint. talk to your local road department, maybe some type of fine cinder material could be added to that to help with wet traction. | ||
| Jaimec |
Any aggregate added to the paint will likely end up getting polished smooth by traffic, but it will provide temporary relief. The best idea, though, is still to avoid riding over it. Treat it like coming across a steel plate in the road. And I still remember that time in Philadelphia when we were on a long, sweeping freeway on-ramp in the rain. Right in the middle of the curve was a steel plate that spanned the entire width of the roadway. What the hell were those traffic engineers THINKING??? Fortunately, all of us had the presence of mind (AND the training) to straighten up the bikes and SLOWLY ride straight across the plate before tipping it back in to finish the curve. I still wonder how many cars and bikes they had to peel off the concrete barrier that day? | ||
| Slaughter |
Traction on paint has been an issue for as long as I can remember. I broke my collarbone in Costa Mesa in about 1978 on my RD400 riding over an arrow in just a heavy fog at about 10MPH (left turn from a light) It's just one of those things. The paint HAS to last, it HAS to reflect light... traction for motorcycles was never an issue. The person who can come up with a material that will maintain traction, not add to maintenance and still get good reflection - will probably get a Nobel Prize in physics. | ||
| Chrisb |
I saw some VDOT putting in a new stop line one day. They threw sand on it and followed behind with a weed burner. I wish they all did that. Road paint freaks me out. (Message edited by chrisb on December 21, 2007) | ||
| Jaimec |
The thing about it is... it is DESIGNED to be highly visible. If you can see it, you can avoid it. Just as you won't willingly ride into a concrete bridge abuttment, don't ride over the paint in the wet, and adjust your line so your apex isn't in the paint. Treat it as you would a steel deck bridge. | ||
| Sarodude |
You can't avoid it if it spans the whole road. It's a crossing - and the one that really pisses me off is IN a turn. It has not been worn smooth. I guarantee more people drive over the arrow I blitzed on the 170 freeway (the one with grip) than over this horse crossing (all 3 crossings on San Fran have wet ice-like wet grip and are fine in the dry). I can ride around crap just fine. I simply do NOT buy that this problem has truly been addressed in earnest by the folks who do this work. Besides, what's to say that this wouldn't aggravate a 4-wheeled panic situation? Caltrans will block the freeway to clean up a diesel spill - and most traffic is 4 wheeled. Gross oversights are everywhere. This is just one of them - and I supposed it's just my problem. | ||
| Jaimec |
You can TRY complaining to your local government. One thing you CAN do is get in the face of your local Assemblyman. Present your case in a calm, level-headed manner and bring as much evidence as possible with you. That will get you much better results than bitching on an internet forum I can guarantee. Politicians want to get reelected. In order to get reelected, they have to keep their constituents happy. If just ONE voter takes the time out to see him/her in his/her local office then he/she HAS to assume there are probably a thousand people who feel the same way, but not as strongly as the one person who took the time out of his schedule to see him. No politician wants to kiss off a thousand votes unless he can count on two thousand from some place else. Letters (the postal variety, NOT E-Mail) are viewed as 100 to 1. For every MAILED letter, the politician will assume there are a hundred people who feel the same way (but wouldn't take the time to sit down and write). E-Mail means nothing. One for one, because E-Mail takes no effort (which is why internet Petitions are worthless too). Do you have a local ABATE Chapter or AMA PAC? If so, take the issue up with them as well. That's what they're there for. Here in New York we have a very active PAC run by one Larry Schwartz. He keeps the local AMA District organizations apprised of his activities and we let him know our concerns as well. If you don't have a local AMA PAC, then maybe it's time to start one. Anyway, other than simply riding around the problem those are your options. Good luck and enjoy the holidays! | ||
| Badlionsfan |
glass would hold up in such a situation. |
