Road Description System

Every road listed has a set of defining characteristics that affect the sporting enjoyment of that road. Traffic, general road quality, number of corners, length of road etc. For each road the following characteristics will be listed:

Length (km): This simply states the length of the road in kilometers
Corner Ratio: This is a rough guess at what percentage of the total road distance is spent preparing to enter, turn and exit corners. In rough terms only straights longer than about 2 seconds travel time start to count against this ratio. This is meant to give an indication as to how demanding a section of road is.
Corner Speeds: A verbal description of the sorts of corner speeds a quick sporting rider could experience. Of course, road laws will prevent riders from experiencing the upper speeds. This is primarily meant only as an indication of how tight the road is and is by no means meant as a recommendation or an endorsement for breaking the law.
- Slow - less than 60 km/h
- Fair - 60-100 kph
- Medium - 100 - 140 kph
- Fast - 140 plus
Traffic (cars/min): This is a rough guess of the typical number of cars you'll either pass or encounter coming the opposite way per minute. At less than 0.5 cars/min the traffic is fairly light and unobtrusive. At around 1 the traffic starts to noticably get in one's way. Greater than 2 cars/min is fairly heavy traffic that can hinder enjoyment.
Bumpiness: A verbal description of how bumpy or dippy the bitumen is. A definition of a bump or a dip is one that noticably causes the suspension to work.
- Very Bumpy - Constantly being bumped about about (> 5 per kilometer)
- Bumpy - Often getting bumped (say up to 5 per kilometer)
- Occasional bumps - Up to 1 bump per kilometer.
- Smooth - Less than 1 bump per 5 kilometers
Bitumen Grip: A verbal description of the quality of bitumen:
- Slippery - slippery in the wet, fair in dry (almost no roads get this bad)
- Patchy - slippery/bumpy patches (usually in corners), good bitumen otherwise
- Good - generally good bitumen cover, very occasional bump
- Grippy - new or specially surfaced roads. Hard on tyres but great grip!
Special Notes: Additional comments regarding the road, such as bad corrugations in corners compromising grip, excessive potholes or bitumen patches over potholes, gravel sections, moss during winter, fallen bark, etc.
Location: This will name the distance (as the crow flies) and direction from the Melbourne CBD to the road and the towns that lie at either end of the road .
Getting there: Assumes a small amount of local knowledge with respect to major highways. This offers a suggested direct route to get to the road from the Melbourne CBD. Of course there exist more fun ways but this requires a fair amount of local knowledge to describe these routes.
Rating system modified and simplified 15-6-2002, Ben Warden