With 97 miles on with the clock, at the end of Nic Meadow’s re-run of Jim’s Century Ride (which I enjoyed very much, thanks Nic!) I had a pinch puncture.
This was on the rough bit at the end of the cycle path in Meadow View road, Radstock.
When I came to repair it, I found that, due to the speed that I was going at the time that I came to a stop, I had picked up 5 more pinch punctures by running on a flat tyre.
6 punctures in all: is this a new record?
Bob Latchem
@SomerValleyCC Tweets
Sign up for our Mendip Madness Spring Sportive on 15th April! 40m and 60m routes. Just £8 + £1 booking fee, or £10…
Echo Rob’s response. Nothing will be done.
When the path was first opened in 2004 the rough section of the path went as far as the county boundary (about where the information board and traffic counter is). Council refused to properly surface because it was regarded as purely temporary pending development of the railway land. I’ll repeat that. Temporary. Nine years ago.
The tarmac was extended to the bridge with the stupid “One at a Time” warning some time later by Sustrans who managed to get a grant from somewhere or other. The remaining bumpy bit is over allegedly private land. I say allegedly, because it is “owned” by Norton Radstock Regeneration – an [alleged] phony “company” set up by the council to administer the speculative housing development… oops, sorry, I mean the Regeneration of Radstock; my mistake…
Anyway, there’s no chance of a proper surface put down there unless there’s some “guerrilla surfacing” (a la 1970s-early 1980s Sustrans). Not that I would be so rash as to make such a suggestion. Oh, no no no.
Likewise the rough surface of the Norton-Radstock Greenway. That’s under the control of B&NES again. The tarmac bit is Town Council. A request to B&NES for widening to original design width and a sealed surface got no response. Eventually a phone call got the excuse “people like it that way, and a sealed surface would detract from the rural atmosphere of Welton Vale”. Bo*****s, of course, as would be expected from the council box-tickers, especially when a sizeable chunk of the town side of “Welton Vale” is industrialised or derelict.
I think you’ll be lucky to see anything done. Last time I complained about the state of the Greenway I was told that they couldn’t see anything wrong with the surface there.
Bob, that stretch of rubble at the end of NCR 24 in Meadow View drives me nuts! I will send a note to the local councillor to see if it can be fixed.