What have the Romans ever done for us?

If you have ever watched "Life of Brian" you'll know where that comes from. My favourite line from that particular snippet of genius?

"Well, yeah, obviously the roads, the roads go without saying don't they?"

I spent a lot of time pondering that quip today, about three and a half hours, give or take, and wondering where that wisdom went between the end of the Roman occupation of Briatin, and the jurisdiction of the various petty bureacracies that make our highways and metalled surfaces what they are.

I'm sure I learnt at school that the Roman roads were so good, that they were still the best roads in the UK over a thousand years after the Romans left. If that's the case, what happened? Our roads are shocking. Cracks, potholes, gravel, hedge debris, poor drainage. That's just the start.

There's one stretch of the Wells to Wedmore road, just after you come out of Wells and go down the hill towards Wookey. It was always a bit sketchy, so I was  delighted to see that they have re-surfaced it. Except, they have done whole sections  of the road, and then left big gaps of  rubbish in between the re-surfaced bits. What brain thought that would be a good idea? One obsessed with cost and not value that's who.

Now if you want to cheer yourself after reading that rant, have a look at the clip. Just be careful though. If you have limited time, this could lead to an evening's surfing on Youtube, looking at other Monty Python clips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso

I particularly liked the self-defence class.

Today I was due to travel with Skip up to the Cotswolds to do a winter mini sportive. It was an opportunity to cycle with a change of scenery, but she wasn't feeling too good, having a recurring bug, and an unwillingness to consider that she could be over doing it. Who am I to disagree with her?

So I couldn't really be bothered to get up early and decided to fashion a local loop, with a few bail-out options in case she wanted to join me, which she didn't. So I re-fashioned the loop to make it nice and tidy, with no doubling back on myself and a little bit more climbing than I've been doing of late.

I headed north and flirted with the outskirts of Bristol as I climbed Belmont Hill, then back through Long Ashton and up to Barrow Gurney and over the shoulder to Winford and down into the Chew Valley. The wind was decidedly easterly, and was bitingly cold, so I did my best not to hang about. As I passed the lake, I overtook a couple on a tandem, the same couple who had done Bristol to Land's End back in September 2010. I chatted for a while, but didn't linger, as I headed up to Litton, Chewton Mendip and over the hill into Wells.

Now I had the wind at my back and got the speed up as I headed home across the flats, for a round trip of just over 56 miles (Charlie is a bit inaccurate, having lost reception in Backwell) and just over 3000 feet of climbing.

http://ridewithgps.com/trips/486679

I've had a good week all in all, first one back at work after Christmas and New Year, and two commuting trips, a total of 150 miles all told. Good job I've banked them, I'm not going to get an opportunity this week, not till Sunday anyway.

As for those roads, the answer is quite simple. Aside from sending someone back in time, it's all about the camber and the drainage. In France, even the small back roads have a camber to them which generally seems to make the water run off and drain properly. Here we have kerbs, of concrete, or verges, of grass, that are higher than the road surface. So all the water stays on the road for longer and freezes when it gets cold. I suspect the materials are poor too, and there seems to be a mentality to repair the least amount possible. This all leads to the deterioration we see every time we cycle.

Oh don't get me started.........