-
Ah right I see! So would one solution be banning more of these roads in the rule book? But then does that force the route down to being nearly prescribed?
cheekysnaker-
Ah right I see! So would one solution be banning more of these roads in the rule book? But then does that force the route down to being nearly prescribed?
They tried that this year in Romania by banning all the E-roads. But that still left roads like this little beauty, a three-lane road where you have two lanes uphill and one downhill, with concrete blocks in the middle. It was very scary as, when you only had one lane, there was no way for anything to get past. Some drivers were patient but some just forced their way through anyway.
One guy was knocked off on this bit of road. He was able to finish, but had a few injuries. I remember being on this stretch with a truck behind leaning on his horn, clearly not wanting to slow down, and trying to balance on the white line, not daring to look back. It's scary!
I think it is a lot harder to find all the potentially dangerous roads across Europe than it is to identify some reasonably safe roads.
frank9755
It's not that it gets worse in Eastern Europe as such, it's the types of roads that you have to ride on to get round in time: narrow A roads with little or no hard shoulder, lanes not wide enough for a truck to overtake if there is something coming, heavy traffic - not necessarily all the time but at certain times of the day.
I avoid this type of road in the UK. They are no better in Romania or Serbia.
When you get into Eastern Europe there are far fewer alternative roads so it is much harder to avoid going on these ones than in France or Germany, where there are loads of roads. The driving culture is probably a bit worse as well, but that is not the main issue IMHO, the roads are just not safe. A lot of these roads seem to be toll roads for motor vehicles and you get the sense that drivers who have paid a toll particularly resent being held up by a bike.
Some of the roads are wider which makes a big difference. For example the main road across Bulgaria that was a feature of the 2019 TCR is wide and has mostly good sight lines. It felt safe. The main roads in northern Italy are generally a bit wider too.
I agree that traffic danger is a far bigger problem than the crazy parcours. However I see them as being related in that they both show a disregard for rider safety.