Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

OPINION

Potholes on my mind

Avatar
Reading the road

Anyone who spends enough time on our holey roads needs a coping strategy. You could try treating them as clouds, subject to interpretation or Rorschach test. Thus you begin to know not just your enemy, but yourself.

I'll begin.


This is the one that started me thinking about potholes. It's a stomach. Or is it, instead, a fetus in the womb, complete with placenta? Perhaps a little sluglike, but the little slugger will surely develop.


No, this one's the baby.


Car chasing a dog.


Africa.


"How long has it been there?"


Holding the line; my wheel is on a skinny plateau between two broken plains of deteriorating 'top dressing', i.e., repairs showing their premature age.


Nuclear explosion fireball. Also, Fat Man bomb.

IMAGE(http://www.anothercyclingforum.com/pics/badressing.jpg)
More top dressing gone bad. Might want to start from scratch.
Curious cyclist. Doesn't everybody take pictures of potholes?


A little blighter about to leap onto a bigger one.


Call me crazy, but I can just about see Rodin's The Thinker


Evolution; man rising from the primordial chaos. Still has a tail.


Because the laser pointers kept running out of batteries.


Having a lie-in.


Man who has just walked over rather than around an obstacle, and not yet started walking properly again.


A fossil that Mary Anning might have dug up, to be placed on a wall in the Natural History Museum.


It's so obvious, do I even have to say it? T Rex. He's sitting down, of course.


Dugong. Also, the love child of a bear and a peacock in repose.


Honestly the first thing that comes to mind? Utah. It doesn't look anything like the state of Utah. There's a resemblance to Nevada, if you add a shark fin.


A small fish trying to eat a large frog which has lost one of its hind legs (never mind its front ones).


An angel.


A growly legless dog somehow leaping over a bird in flight.


Rhinoceros holding aloft two scoops of ice cream, or camel holding a snail holding 1 scoop.


Oh my god – no!


Either a jowly monster swimming west opening its yap wide for prey, or a Mercator projection of Pangaea.


Educational exhibit on what lies underneath the surface of the road.


Russian with small face and large fur cap, in profile facing left.


The cycle lane.


I almost didn't recognise this. It appears to be a neat patch.


Sometimes a hole is just a hole.


This one is 7km wide. It's technically a lunar impact crater. Something to aspire to?

If you'd like to share your own pothole pics, I would suggest the following guidelines:
- No photoshopping which distorts the pothole.
- You mustn't make your own hole merely for a photo op.
- If possible, include something for scale. Your foot for example, if it's a reasonable human size.

IMAGE(http://anothercyclingforum.com/pics/moonfootprint.jpg)

Add new comment

16 comments

Avatar
Sam Walker | 9 years ago
0 likes
Distinctive Rob wrote:

Ran over a deceptively deep pothole today, didn't even see the bast*rd...

Ouch. You look a bit like a younger Matthew Broderick, who's just been beaten up by the critics for Godzilla.

Avatar
Treads CC | 9 years ago
0 likes

One of my favourites lately is the patch to hole method  39

Avatar
Sam Walker replied to Treads CC | 9 years ago
0 likes
Treads CC wrote:

One of my favourites lately is the patch to hole method

I see a man crushed by his couch cushion.

Avatar
Sam Walker | 9 years ago
0 likes

This is the hole wot got me almost 10 years ago one dark and stormy night. Well, dark at any rate. I'd blame my light but it's not the light's fault that I was going faster than the speed of it.

//anothercyclingforum.com/pics/hole.jpg)

Now I try to make sure I always see them coming.

Thanks for the comments. It appears that road.cc's Facebook entry is getting most of the Rorschach action. (My wife says assimilation is only a matter of time.) OT: Somehow my front wheel continues to turn despite the quick release being on the wrong side.

Avatar
Peter Scott | 9 years ago
0 likes

A while ago I heard a bloke responsible for road repairs in Yorkshire being interviewed on the radio about potholes. He said they divided them into two. Holes deeper than 50 mm were regarded as urgent and filled fairly quickly. Shallower than that, the holes were not regarded as dangerous so would be left until the next round of repairs on that section. Interesting that this was where the TdF set off shortly after. I wonder if the need to repair all those kilometres of roads had caused this policy or whether the council simply didn't care about the danger to cyclists.

Avatar
Bikeylikey | 9 years ago
0 likes

When you look into a hole, a hole looks back at you.

Avatar
CanAmSteve | 9 years ago
0 likes

I love the one where they have carefully filled only the section of pothole which meets their strict (and unfathomable) criteria for repair - leaving the ragged edges to fall apart with the next rain.

And don't let the white paint identifying where repairs are needed fool you. The councils have already figured out that being liberal with the cheap spray paint shuts down complaints. We have some holes that were marked three years ago but have never been patched. Gonna need more paint...

Avatar
Martyn_K replied to CanAmSteve | 9 years ago
0 likes
CanAmSteve wrote:

And don't let the white paint identifying where repairs are needed fool you. The councils have already figured out that being liberal with the cheap spray paint shuts down complaints. We have some holes that were marked three years ago but have never been patched. Gonna need more paint...

The local authority is actually liable for any injuries and damage to vehicles caused by potholes that have been marked and registered for repair. This is due to them being aware of the issue. Those unmarked are not known about and therefore how can they be evaluated and repaired and how can the authorities be liable.

Obviously there is a grading system, there has to be in order to get the worst done first and there is priority made to holes on major routes. Also obvious is that many a pothole grows often removing the paint markers, this often leads to the type of repair changing leading to more delays.

The bottom line is this, potholes exist and in this country there are lots of them. If you ride a road regularly, try and mentally map the potholes if you can. If you are riding new territory then look 30 yards down the road, not at your stem.

Avatar
Distinctive Rob | 9 years ago
0 likes

Ran over a deceptively deep pothole today, didn't even see the bast*rd. This is the result: bust lip, chipped teeth, ambulance trip and a need for expensive dental surgery. About time councils started caring about potholes and cyclists.

I think it's fair to say I've had just about enough of potholes for today. Rant over. Stay safe.

Avatar
captain_slog | 9 years ago
0 likes

That one captioned 'patch' is obviously a Rothko.

Avatar
Sam Walker replied to captain_slog | 9 years ago
0 likes
captain_slog wrote:

That one captioned 'patch' is obviously a Rothko.

Avatar
badkneestom | 9 years ago
0 likes

This was a great read

Avatar
andyp | 9 years ago
0 likes

love the article btw.  1

Avatar
Sam Walker | 9 years ago
0 likes

Some of them are worse than they look here, but it's true that none are deep enough to get lost in.

The worst stretch on my regular rounds is finally being seen to later in the month:

//anothercyclingforum.com/pics/fixingholes.jpg)

It's a long hill which has most of the fun taken out of going down it by strategically placed ruin.

Avatar
andyp | 9 years ago
0 likes

christ. I'd consider most of those to be 'normal road surface' rather than potholes. What lovely roads you have where you are  3

Avatar
Pointbroken replied to andyp | 9 years ago
0 likes

@andyp Thank god I thought I was the only one who thought that!

Just goes to show how conditionded we are to accept crap roads.

Thoroughly enjoyed the article all the same.

Latest Comments