Road Surface on Embankment

mr_ribble

I got a reply to the email I sent to TFL last week :

Dear Mr "Ribble",

Thank you for your e-mail to Leon Daniels about the condition of the road surface on Victoria Embankment. I have been asked to respond on to you on Mr Daniels’ behalf.

I was sorry to hear of your accident last week Tuesday and I hope that you recover quickly. We have, as requested, investigated this matter further, and I can confirm that the materials and methods used in the resurfacing of this stretch of road over Easter are compliant with the required standards, including specified skid-resistance levels. Nevertheless we will continue to test and monitor this stretch of road to make sure it remains compliant. I should explain however that whilst we are confident that the work was done properly, the type of material used, stone mastic asphalt, does increase in skid resistance performance as it used by traffic within the first few weeks. This means that for a short while the skid resistance, although fully compliant with specification, may be slightly below that offered by the previous surface.

The collisions that you witnessed on Thursday morning however were caused by a large spillage from a vehicle delivering to a bar at Temple Place, but this was not connected to the resurfacing in any way.

I hope this is helpful. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Yours sincerely

Kate Keane
Correspondence Support Manager

Pufftmw

LOL - a "fully compliant" response!

clarkey cat

Official translation:

Dear Mr Ribble,

Clear off.

Yours sincerely

Kenny B. Harssed.

veronese68

Mr_Ribble wrote:

The collisions that you witnessed on Thursday morning however were caused by a large spillage from a vehicle delivering to a bar at Temple Place.

A beer spillage!!! What a waste.

notsoblue

Its interesting that the regulations don't state that the road surface needs to be skid resistant as soon as its put down.

davis

notsoblue wrote:

Its interesting that the regulations don't state that the road surface needs to be skid resistant as soon as its put down.

They do. If you read the OP again it says "it's worse, but still compliant". If it's the stuff I'm thinking of it's terrifyingly bad in the wet when it's new...

notsoblue

davis wrote:

notsoblue wrote:

Its interesting that the regulations don't state that the road surface needs to be skid resistant as soon as its put down.

They do. If you read the OP again it says "it's worse, but still compliant". If it's the stuff I'm thinking of it's terrifyingly bad in the wet when it's new...

Yeah, I read the OP. I guess my point is that the standards for recently laid surface are clearly lower than that for the settled product. If the surface always had the same level of skid resistance then it wouldn't be suitable as a surface material.

flimflam_machine

notsoblue wrote:

davis wrote:

notsoblue wrote:

Its interesting that the regulations don't state that the road surface needs to be skid resistant as soon as its put down.

They do. If you read the OP again it says "it's worse, but still compliant". If it's the stuff I'm thinking of it's terrifyingly bad in the wet when it's new...

Yeah, I read the OP. I guess my point is that the standards for recently laid surface are clearly lower than that for the settled product. If the surface always had the same level of skid resistance then it wouldn't be suitable as a surface material.

I don't think it means that the standard is lower, after all the newly laid surface still meets the standard. The point is that the surface gets more grippy, and so exceeds the standard, as it's used. I think the interesting thing is that the resurfacing, counter-intuitively, initially makes the road more slippery as it goes from old, used grippy tarmac to new, shiny slippy tarmac. If you don't expect that and go at it at your normal speed it will catch you out.

Worth knowing I guess.

notsoblue

flimflam_machine wrote:

I don't think it means that the standard is lower, after all the newly laid surface still meets the standard. The point is that the surface gets more grippy, and so exceeds the standard, as it's used. I think the interesting thing is that the resurfacing, counter-intuitively, initially makes the road more slippery as it goes from old, used grippy tarmac to new, shiny slippy tarmac. If you don't expect that and go at it at your normal speed it will catch you out.

Well, the standard isn't sufficiently high enough for SCR :P

keyser__soze

SMA is quite controversial and banned in lots of countries because of lack of skid resistance - see my post in the SCR thread. Moped slipped over through Temple this am, just seemed to lose his rear wheel, not on a grille or anything. I wonder how many people have been affected and how it compares with normal accident levels.

EKE_38BPM

Sounds to me like what you hear on F1 commentary. The cars go faster when they have used the track for a while. In F1 speak, the tracks go from "green" to "rubbered in".

So the newly laid Embankment has gone/is going from green to rubbered in.

davis

EKE_38BPM wrote:

So the newly laid Embankment has gone/is going from green to rubbered in.

I don't believe it's to do with the rubber being laid down on the normal road surface; I believe it's the amount of wear on a new surface. Round here there was a spate of road deaths and a bunch of accidents (one of them me parking a lovely car in a tree) all on newly-surfaced roads in the wet. Very shortly after that the council deployed road-sweeper machines to "scrub" the surface of the road and accelerate the ageing process.

Note: I have no proof of the above.

Keyser__Soze wrote:

SMA is quite controversial and banned in lots of countries because of lack of skid resistance - see my post in the SCR thread.

Link please? Couldn't immediately see it, I'm afraid. Sounds interesting

EKE_38BPM

davis wrote:

EKE_38BPM wrote:

So the newly laid Embankment has gone/is going from green to rubbered in.

I don't believe it's to do with the rubber being laid down on the normal road surface; I believe it's the amount of wear on a new surface. Round here there was a spate of road deaths and a bunch of accidents (one of them me parking a lovely car in a tree) all on newly-surfaced roads in the wet. Very shortly after that the council deployed road-sweeper machines to "scrub" the surface of the road and accelerate the ageing process.

Note: I have no proof of the above.

Keyser__Soze wrote:

SMA is quite controversial and banned in lots of countries because of lack of skid resistance - see my post in the SCR thread.

Link please? Couldn't immediately see it, I'm afraid. Sounds interesting

In F1 it is about laying rubber down, but on a normal road I would guess it is about the oils in the Tarmac being worn away/washed away/scrubbed off. Your road sweeper story would seem to back that up.

cyclingprop

Keyser's thing went on about some chemical that is included in the hot stuff to make it easier to lay (fnarr fnarr).

More importantly does this mean that Ribble fell off because he was going too slowly to stay upright?

jzed

So Ribble, surprised to hear you didn't get a letter back saying:

"Dear Mr Ribble,

Unfortunately our tarmac can't cope with your awesome power output. It is set at a traction limit of 1,000 watts. This is the standard set in 2007 by reference to The Power Awesome (TM), plus a margin."

mr_ribble

I've just ordered a Powertap Kilo +. Is their latest model that only reads out in Kilowatts... for those of us who dont mess around and anyling less than 1000!

Sharkyssurfers

well watching the cycling on eurosport last night, they mentioned that events usually re-tarmac the roads before the event and it can cause more problems because of tarmac sweat, tree pollen and wet weather of course, so it could be a combination of all three for that section on embankment, as there was a lot of pollen/debris on that stretch last night.

mr_ribble

cyclingprop wrote:

Keyser's thing went on about some chemical that is included in the hot stuff to make it easier to lay (fnarr fnarr).

More importantly does this mean that Ribble fell off because he was going too slowly to stay upright?

Well I was trying to hold Ed F'w wheel at the time. So by definition it was anything but slow.

keyser__soze

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/mot ... -grip.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/f ... 278419.stm

Only a couple of years til it wears down enough for grip to be back to normal :roll:

SteppenHerring

Sharkyssurfers wrote:

well watching the cycling on eurosport last night, they mentioned that events usually re-tarmac the roads before the event and it can cause more problems because of tarmac sweat, tree pollen and wet weather of course, so it could be a combination of all three for that section on embankment, as there was a lot of pollen/debris on that stretch last night.

Seen this is a few pro races - even in the tour when Spartacus stopped the sprint after the Shlecks went sliding. They put the new surface down and the first rain floats a load of oil to the surface making it really slippery.

I notice that they're resurfacing Box Hill starting next week so plenty of time for that to get settled before the Olympic road race. Of course it will need plenty of testing once it's nice and smooth.

rick_chasey

SteppenHerring wrote:

Sharkyssurfers wrote:

well watching the cycling on eurosport last night, they mentioned that events usually re-tarmac the roads before the event and it can cause more problems because of tarmac sweat, tree pollen and wet weather of course, so it could be a combination of all three for that section on embankment, as there was a lot of pollen/debris on that stretch last night.

Seen this is a few pro races - even in the tour when Spartacus stopped the sprint after the Shlecks went sliding. They put the new surface down and the first rain floats a load of oil to the surface making it really slippery.

I notice that they're resurfacing Box Hill starting next week so plenty of time for that to get settled before the Olympic road race. Of course it will need plenty of testing once it's nice and smooth.

Not many pro riders (Menchov aside) fall off going uphill.

It's if they've done the descent that would be of concern.

Then again, all the pros are more worried about potholes than the odd slippery road. Rightly so.

SteppenHerring

Rick Chasey wrote:

Not many pro riders (Menchov aside) fall off going uphill.

It's not very uphill. Also I was thinking of the area at the top - you have the little island in the middle then the bend around the carpark. They are surfacing all the way to the Smith & Western. The nasty drain covers are further on from there though - nearer to Dauphin's.

rick_chasey

SteppenHerring wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Not many pro riders (Menchov aside) fall off going uphill.

It's not very uphill. Also I was thinking of the area at the top - you have the little island in the middle then the bend around the carpark. They are surfacing all the way to the Smith & Western. The nasty drain covers are further on from there though - nearer to Dauphin's.

It's mainly descents and roundabouts.

No-one's going to fall going up Box Hill because of the surface.

You might get a comedy bunch up at the back - guy can't clip out/didn't see the bunch stop fall, but no-one's going to slip going uphill.

---

I'll be honest, I hadn't noticed any slipperyness till people mentioned it on here.

I still struggle to see where it's slippery but I'll take other people's word for it. (I've been told where, but can't notice on the bike)

Tricycleboy

Got to say i hadn't noticed it'd even been resurfaced, except that bit of 'pave' thats gone from outside the HoP on Milbank- is that what you're on about? Used to like that bit too... it was like 100meters of a really sh!t Paris-Roubaix.

Origamist

A bit more of an update from TFL:

Following the essential carriageway resurfacing work that was carried out during the Easter Bank Holiday, there had been a few reported cycle accidents due to slippery surface on the newly laid surface by Temple Place outside the 'Walkabout Pub'. As soon this issue was brought to Transport for London’s (TfL) attention, the section of the road was cordoned off from traffic and investigations confirmed that a spillage of beer had caused the surface to be slippery. TfL's contractors immediately jet-washed the area concerned before it was reopened to traffic.

The newly laid carriageway surface was as per the current approved standards, however, following the recent cycle incidents, TfL undertook further investigations, to ensure that the carriageway surface meets the correct skid resistance standards. I am pleased to inform that the results confirm that the surface meets all the skid resistance standards.

Once the section of the road was cleaned up, there were no further reported cycle incidents on Victoria Embankment. In view of the above, TfL is confident that this was an isolated issue due to a spillage and not related to non-standard material specification or poor workmanship of the road surface.

keyser__soze

See you got the same email I did...

rjsterry

Who knew beer was that slippery.

tgotb

Racing at Crystal Palace is currently off until they resurface parts of the track. First few races there are going to be interesting!

Origamist

Keyser__Soze wrote:

See you got the same email I did...

Yep, I bet there was lot of cutting and pasting in TFL towers this pm.

The problem with the following:

Once the section of the road was cleaned up, there were no further reported cycle incidents on Victoria Embankment. In view of the above, TfL is confident that this was an isolated issue due to a spillage and not related to non-standard material specification or poor workmanship of the road surface.

is that solo crashes involving cyclists are massively under-reported - even when injuries occur. I hope it was all related to some Australian piss-brew on the tarmac, but I'll ask for the collision stats for the last few years along this stretch later in the year to see if there was more than just a cluster when/where the booze hit the deck.

mr_ribble

Yes.. i was nowhere near the walkabout when I went down.

Although the person next day who crashed just after where the moped went down probably was. I cant see how beer is anymore slippery than say rain

veronese68

rjsterry wrote:

Who knew beer was that slippery.

I know I'm prone to falling if I have enough of it. Treacherous stuff.