Tar Snakes

[JimGregory]

I was getting on the highway this morning enjoying my decreasing radius tight 270 degree curve. Hanging off the bike as usual at 7 AM. Didn't notice the pavement was covered in tar snakes same color as pavement. Man I was slipping and sliding all through the turn. Expected the high side at any moment but I made it through. Front letting go and back letting go..ughh.. Cant slow down, cant do anything cept hang on..

Wow..I don't like tar snakes. Not even a little.

If that crap is on the exit ramp there are gonna be crashes.

[duccmann]

Sounds like cold tires and hot asphalt. Back in the day when they did repairs on one of my favorite canyons and just with the high temps outside everytime I ran one over in a turn both tires would slip......bet ya didnt need any coffee after that......slimy shit

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Edited August 15, 2014 by duccmann

[Beck]

Hate tar snakes! Especially when I encounter them in turns. I also hat it when they would repair whole swaths of road with asphalt that gets all polished glass smooth and slippery by traffic in turns too. Going over them fast on a blind turn while you are cranked over can give one a heart attack!..... So far I've been lucky (knock on wood) and just had the bike just wag its tail slightly on all of them.

[CornerCarver]

Highway 60 here in North GA had some tar snakes added to make the road even more exciting a few years ago between Suches and Morganton.

Polarized glasses make them stand out in any lighting condition.

The snakes that cross the road (ie perpendicular more or less to the direction of travel) no problem - the snakes that run in your direction of travel can make even a well suspended bike squirm about uncomfortably but it is good to paractice riding them to develop feel/feedback experience from the front and rear slipping and re-gripping.

Much worse results usually occur when a pilot alters their line to avoid tar snakes after leaned over or over-thinks the tar snake and losses down field vision instead while focusing on the slippery lil suckers

[dutchinterceptor]

Tar snakes are a nuisance!!

[The mailman]

I don't like 'em but I deal with them much better now that I've learned to just expect the loose feeling and ride it out. You're in trouble if you are all leaned over rocketing through a curve but with regular speeds you should be OK. Just a little unnerving at first. Wet weather or HOT weather just makes it worse but use the force Luke and ride it out!

[spud786]

Really, snakes are the most issue in like rain and freezing weather, then they are really slick. Other wise they don't pose too much threat in comparison, with a decent tires.

[BCmcrider]

Tar snakes are a nuisance!!

That's got to be some kind of a joke.. but it looks so real. Are you sure that's not a massive seismometer?

[Aimbot9000]

Tar snakes are a nuisance!!

thats almost as bad as NC 226A was when i rode it.

[JimGregory]

These snakes were less then a day old. Tires are fresh and were warm. There was no option but to ride smooth and hope for the best. I have never had a problem with them or painted lines or glossy repairs before this, and I have been riding 45 years. These sucker jumped out at me after I was commited and hanging off. Well I will get another look at them this morning I guess.

[vfr350]

The crack filler snakes certainly seem slippery on hot sunny days. If those are road snakes what do you call those popped rubber pythons on concrete roads....

[Texfoto]

Only solution I found was to slow down because you can pretty much assume that a road with tar snakes is a wet road.

[FJ12Ryder]

I don't mean to bash your riding style, but unexpected tar snakes might be a good reason not to be riding so close to the edge on the street. Always nice to leave a bit of wiggle room for just such unexpected joys.

[spud786]

These snakes were less then a day old. Tires are fresh and were warm. There was no option but to ride smooth and hope for the best. I have never had a problem with them or painted lines or glossy repairs before this, and I have been riding 45 years. These sucker jumped out at me after I was commited and hanging off. Well I will get another look at them this morning I guess.

Lots of roads were I live are 80 percent Tar and very little rock on the surface. Lots of backroads, they lay a thick layer of tar down then throw rock on it. It gets so hot here, the tar actually bubbles up and floats over top of the rocks, in freezing conditions and rainy, these roads are very slick as a result. Thats one reason I don't run sport tour tire on the front. You can literally run 90 mph in rain conditions and turn the steering left and right while going straight with sport tour fronts, from lack of traction on these type roads .

[Knute]

A little inch or two wide snake isn't quite so bad, but up here in Duluth they've started making the damn things nearly a foot wide! Just don't understand why they need to do this? Fill the crack, put a little toilet paper in and call it good anyway! Gezzz...

[tcooper]

So far this summer, my city and county have tar snaked just about every main road in and around town. A lot of it looks very similar to the picture posted. They've also chip sealed (tar and gravel) the road my house is on and all but one road between my house and the town ~30 miles away that I work in. That one road is also covered in tar snakes.

[JimGregory]

I don't mean to bash your riding style, but unexpected tar snakes might be a good reason not to be riding so close to the edge on the street. Always nice to leave a bit of wiggle room for just such unexpected joys.

I wasnt close to the edge. Nowhere near in fact. Just riding at a sporting pace. I hang off for fun. Dont usually need to. In fact I ride for fun. I think most of us do.

On my way to work this morning i took the same curve at a very slow speed and still the tires slid on every snake. Crazy slippery stuff. Never seen it like this. On my way home I was stopped on the exit ramp and stuck my foot on it. I could smear it left and right like fresh chewing gum but lightly skinned over. I guess the stuff will harden up when the solvent evaporates out. This whole section of the wilbur cross/merrit parkway in CT is covered with the stuff.

The problem is the stuff skins over and the stuff under the skin is still runny. I guess. I could move it around with my boot like nothing. Oh well.

Now when the tar snakes get cell phones and start texting we are all screwed!

Edited August 15, 2014 by JimGregory

[FJ12Ryder]

I gotcha. I was thinking that you were hanging off because you were going all out.

They will get better as they age, but they are still slippery when wet, and when it get really hot. We have them in Missouri and they suck here too. It's kind of a toss-up which is worse: chip-and-seal or tar snakes.

[duccmann]

that shit is slippery as gorilla snot...

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[Alaskan]

I hate the ones that run parallel to my course. The ones running across the road aren't so bad.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Alaskan

[Guest]

Cheap nasty road patching....my uncle worked on the roads all his life and thought they were a disgrace.

Dangerous when wet, no consideration for motorcyclists......

On the topic of slippery when hot.......one summer I went for a ride and ended up on an Alpine Rd to a winter resort, it was 40 degrees celsius, about 104F.

The bike was squirming around so much I thought I had a flat, turned out the road surface was melting, I slowly made my way down the mountain and met up with a couple of guys that had come the opposite way, one of them was picking tar out of his boots, they had stopped to take photos and his boot had stuck to the road.

We found out later the entire road had been redone after the bushfires went through the year before.

[JimGregory]

As a follow up. A few weeks later and the tar snakes are still slick as snot. What are these people thinking.

Edited August 31, 2014 by JimGregory

[trjerm]

It just adds another dimension to riding not only picking your line thru the corner but around the tar snakes as well, and if you can't do that then your probably riding to hard for the street

[rc51jim]

My current bike is an 01 VFR800FI. It came with Michelin tires, don't recall which ones but I think PP3. Went around a curve that was COVERED in tar snakes, they crossed the lane about every 6 feet though the entire curve. Each one I went over slid me closer to the edge of the lane, I started off at the inside and slid all the way to the outside., fortunately staying in the lane. After changing tires later in the year to Dunlop Roadsmart 2, the sliding was almost non-existent, even in the same corner. Obviously tires have some affect on it, although I'm not interested in comparing compounds and belt angles to figure out why. I just know it was horrible with the Michelin's and virtually gone with the Roadsmart 2.

Edited February 9, 2016 by rc51jim

[checksix]

Maybe because the tar snakes had a year to cure and harden?