A bleeding tarry Christmas oop north

[george formby]

I know, old news, tar bleed.
Posting, purely, as it's the worst I have seen up here in the Bay of Islands and I suspect the rest of the region will be similar. Locally we have had road repairs which consist of a lot of tar and a little gravel. Now that the summer has hammered in their are a lot of treacherous bits of road, I would go so far as to say slicks.
Had a wee slide today despite seeing and smelling that the whole of my lane was liquid tar and setting up to ride through slowly and as upright as possible. It's slick as an eel. Keep your wits about you.

That's all, just sayin. Have an upright summer folks.

[MarkW]

And as another far north resident I'll 100% agree with the O.P. Had a midweek ride last Thursday. Stopped at one particularly bad bit of tar bleed on a well travelled back road - air temperature was 23 degrees. The tar was so soft that I could insert my thumb into the road deeper than the base of my fingernail. Highway 10 is a mess with bleed between the Totara North turn off and Taipa. Take care up here - the summer "road works" are in full swing with more crap work being done.

[Tazz]

I was going to start a thread about this a few weeks ago but was too lazy :laugh:

Between the tar bleed, unmarked road works, excessive road works (twice in same spots in a year while either side is left in orrid condition) and lack of sweeping the road clear of debris posts works would it be worth setting out a template letter for people to email their local council outlining the dissatisfaction with the way their contractors are fulfilling their contracts?

I called Marlborough roads about the state of QCD at some point last year (they never swept up the ice grit from winter) and they had it cleared within the week which was pretty fawkin awesome. Maybe I just happened to ring right before they were about to do it anyway though :laugh:

Try not to whinge with letters and the like too often but it fucks me off when you see the cunts put in all that cheese cutter wiring shit along the road right before the end of the financial year (which is significant in regards to funding) and then constantly fucking half arse any seal repairs/replacement throughout the rest of the year.
Do they take engineering instructions from a fuckin Magic 8 Ball or something? Might as well leave it as gravel and be done with it.

[Moi]

... Might as well leave it as gravel and be done with it.

Wash your mouth out with... [choose from one of the following]
a. carbolic soap b. a cold ale c. a strong coffee

Gravel roads? GRAVEL ROADS?? Bloody heck mate... Mr Wally-Trolley driver in his super-duper-special Wally-Trolley will get it dusty and, heaven-forbid, possibly dirty and little Tarquin and little Priscilla may find they are unable to watch the latest video on the screens in the rear of the front seats... How could you inflict this dis-comfort upon them?

Have you no social conscience?

[Sarcasm switched off]

[Tazz]

Yeah we're going a bit soft :bleh:, but the way I look at it is if you're getting paid to do the job you do the job otherwise why bother.
If it was a driveway they'd sealed and it was half arsed like the roads, shit would go down, so why is it so different with roads?



a. carbolic soap

Hmm, what colour/flavour? :D

[Moi]

Hmm, what colour/flavour? :D

This do? (http://guideimg.alibaba.com/images/shop/76/09/05/9/carbolic-soap-for-bikers-and-cyclists-tough-cleansing-motor-bike-soap_4158639.jpg) :eek5:

[george formby]

I had the dubious pleasure of negotiating an exceedingly degraded stretch of road visiting MarkW yesterday, he had forewarned us. T'was ok the first time, dry, but on the way home we had gentle misty rain. The stretch of road, fortunately straight, would be somewhere in the region of 100mtrs long and maybe 60 - 70% slick. The actual chip that's visible is coated in tar, too. For added effect the slick bit of road is bracketed by nice layers of cow shit where cows cross to the milking shed.

Rather than practice my braking I focused on the distant horizon. What a bloody mess, though.

The 150 km trip home in the rain was an exercise in looking for the potentially grippy bit of road between the gleaming tar bleed.

I would be happier with gravel....... Just sayin.

[Moise]

We head up there each summer. The standard of road maintenance is bad - they'd be better to leave the roads as is than bother with all the half arsed repairs.