Tag: grit

#365daysofbiking That was a bit nippy

November 18th – It was a cold, thankfully dry journey home. The roads were glistening with ice, and the main ones, a fresh scattering of road salt.

The first icy commute home of the winter is always hard. My hands and face were cold. It hurt.

Stopping at a shop in the way home, I noticed that the temperature was marginally still above zero degrees Celsius.

That was a shock. it felt much colder.

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March 19th – The thaw was thankfully quick, and the day felt positively warm and sunny as aI zipped about the Black Country on errands.

I was only when I got back to work and the bike started to dry out did I realise the toll the snow had taken.

That bottom bracket won’t be long for the world now with all that grit. My bikes will need some real TLC when the better days arrive.

March 1st – Allegedly the first day of spring, but a better one insomuch as I was better prepared for the cold. I wrapped up better, and rode a more sensible bike. It was just as cold, with more persistent, more powdery snow – but on leaving work early, I did a loop of Brownhills before nightfall to enjoy the spectacle.

Enjoy it I did, although again, the wind and cold were punitive and pugilistic. The powder drifted in clouds like dust devils over canal ice and bone-dry roads. Snow depths went from nothing at all to 150mm. At 4:30pm it was already minus 5 degrees C. When my hair started to develop lumps of ice, I decided to go home.

I noted the gritting operation at the council depot was in full swing, and the grit barn looks very depleted. The coos up at Highfields Farm, Chasewater looked peaceful and unconcerned, and the fox I scared into woodland across the common near Watling Street was as usual for foxes in snow, apparently apologetic for his higher than usual visibility.

These have been remarkable days to be on a bike. They have been very hard, but I wouldn’t have missed them for the world.

It’ll be interesting to see what the weekend brings.

February 27th – The coldest early evening commute I’ve known for a long time, I battled a vile headwind and sporadic black ice and made my way home carefully.

My ice tyres worked well, and the roads – like the Green Lane here at the Black Cock Bridge – have been very well gritted. But pavements, backroads and car parks were deadly and I made careful, slow progress.

It’ll be interesting to see how bad this gets.

December 13th – The snow, ice and road grit is destroying the brakes on two bikes at the moment. This rear disc is now wearing considerably, and is about 0.3mm thinner than it was new, and the front, 0.7mm. That doesn’t sound much, but once you get to about 1mm worn off, the discs get so thin they buckle and become useless. 

One thing about cycling through the winter: It isn’t cheap!

February 6th – I’m also getting used to the regular pebble-dashings from gritting trucks, spreading salt as a de-icer on the roads. As a cyclist, I’m generally quite slow moving, and because I ravel at particular times of day, my journeys often coincide with the council salt runs. On cold days they’ll be out in force, plodding down the roads of the borough, making the surfaces crunchy to ride on.

Many people have a mental block with grit: they expect it to be magic, like fairy dust, and when they find roads still icy, they’ll tell you the trucks never came, or that the council is useless. In reality, spreading rocksalt is not an exact science, and is only to improve conditions, not complete ameliorate them.

Driving skill we still be required after the glitter has gone.

I often feel for the crews, who work long hours on a generally thankless task. So I don’t mind the evening coating of grit.

Up the council gritter!

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December 9th – Walsall Council’s road repair contractors, Tarmac, have a new toy: a velocity patcher. This hi-tech bit of road repair kit cleans out potholes, then blows in a grit and fill mixture, which has a finishing coat of grit applied afterwards. It does a good job.

They’ve been using such a machine in South Staffordshire for ages, and the repairs are long-lasting and good for what they are. They certainly take the nasty surprise out of potholes.

However, just a wee complaint. The crew in Walsall clearly aren’t quite as proficient as those in Staffs, and in the otherwise nicely repaired Scarborough Road in Pleck is awash with loose grit. It’s like Chesil Beach, and very unsafe for cyclists and anyone braking suddenly.

The repair is great, much better – but that loose stuff is going to cause, or exacerbate an accident. Please sort it out.

January 10th – Time for another cycling tip. This is one I repeat often, and is very important, so it bears repeating. Following the rain we’ve had, the roads are currently filthy. This isn’t just country lanes, but major roads, too; the Chester Road up to Shire Oak from Stonnall northbound has a band of wet silt stretching nearly a metre from the kerb for several hundred metres, and it’ as slippery as hell. In the country lanes, the wash down has deposited grit, marbles and hedge-flailings containing sharp thorns into the road, right where we cyclists normally ride..

Watch where you’re going. Beware of puddles that could hide deep potholes. Corner carefully, and maintain your space on the road, so you have somewhere to move to if an unseen hazard appears. Carry spare tubes or a means of repair.

Take it steady out there, folks.

November 23rd – I was passed by a grit lorry on the Chester Road, and winced as the rocksalt tinkled off my bike. It is winter now in all but name, and I’ll get used to it. The cold was bitter, and frost was on the way, so it was good to see Walsall Council teams out on a Saturday treating the roads. As I passed the back of the depot at Apex Road, the yard was busy loading lorries as they came in, and I noted that the salt barn was pretty much full, all set for the winter ahead. A sobering thought.