[AYP]

I took my recently remapped Figo to a concrete section and observed a hell lot of wheelspin after flooring it in the second gear. In contrast, the wheelspin in practically absent on asphalt. Choice is clear.

[Everlearner]

Originally Posted by Raghu M

I have one more very important point. Falling from a bike while doing reasonable speeds, you tend to get badly hurt on concrete roads. Even a small fall will make for a great damage. While the asphalt roads tend to be a bit smoother when you have a fall. That's my observation as I have had personal experience too. I scraped my knee badly while running on concrete road, it would have definitely not been that bad on a normal road.

+1
It's a very important point. Asphalt or tar roads as we call it are far more safe when compared to rough and noisy cement roads.

[TrackDay]

I hate concrete roads ! Not only does it make the ride bouncy & noisy, but in some places due to age, the road becomes slippery too, especially after monsoon. There is nothing more pleasant than to drive on smooth rubberized asphalt road with some very good Michelin Tyres. It is like a match made in heaven If Asphalt road work is done professionally, it will indeed last a good term.

[Jeroen]

A very interesting topic, thanks for starting.

A lot has been said about the pros and cons of concrete versus asphalt. I would like to expand a bit on these:

Here in Western Europe for the last decade or so, a lot of our motorways are made out of so called ZOAB (Zeer open asfalt beton). Essentially a very poreus type fo asfalt concrete. The application is not new, it has been used since the 70s in parking lots and so.

It’s actually very poreus, which means that when it rains, no standing water and I mean it can rain really really hard and the water just drains instantly. Whereas on concrete even small amount of rain can leave substantial puddles.

There is another consideration for concrete versus asphalt too. Has to do with the type of ground/soil. In countries like the Netherlands most of ground tends to be soggy and relatively soft. So over time it moves a bit. For instance our little dike roads are famous for it. Concrete simply does not work, asphalt is much more forgiving as it has some elasticity. And when cracks appear you just fill them up easily as well.

The other issue with concrete is noise. It is a lot easier to dampen tyre noise on asphalt than on concrete. Anywhere you build a road in Europe, you will have to copy with continuously increasing formal regulation about the noise levels. Asphalt is much better in that respect.

You will still find plenty of concrete roads across Europe, be it provincial, rural and even motorways. But as I mentioned, you would typically find them in areas with very sturdy ground, so for instance in and around the Eiffel area.

Jeroen

[FlashMustang]

Voted for concrete roads.

Reasons:

1. Fewer occurrences of bad or broken roads on concrete roads. I hate those nasty surprises. Every time I ride my car over a pothole at speed because it was not visible from afar or I missed it, it breaks my heart.
2. Better use of my (tax-payer's) money. I absolutely hate to see the asphalt roads being newly re-laid or repaired after almost every monsoon season.

[Hayek]

Good quality asphalt roads are of course far better to drive on than concrete roads. But good quality asphalt roads are almost non existent in India - and even when laid very well, get reduced to rubble in one monsoon, at least in coastal cities like Bombay. Hence, when compared with how the typical asphalt road would be over a 3-4 year cycle VS how a concrete road would be on the same stretch, I am forced to opt for the concrete option.

While most roads in Bombay are now concrete, you did have some stretches where asphalt roads were fantastic when newly laid - eg Pawna 3-4 years ago. But a couple of years back, the same road had disappeared, and when I went there last in March, they were building a concrete road - which when built will be superior to the asphalt roads that you could reasonably expect to find on a random trip there.

[Kosfactor]

Those who drive in Bangalore ORR will know the stretch from Hebbal to Manyata Tech park, smooth as as - well it was smooth until they decided to concrete it. After making life hell for everyone working there for many months, it finally opened.

So there was this traffic jam after a bend, everyone is waiting so was I, and an old Indica crashed into my vehicle`s rear, bending my bumper and disabling that vehicle on the spot. This was a dry road, imagine when its wet.

All concrete roads are not like this though, the stretch in neighboring states are very good - Thirupathi onwards towards Ongole Vijayawada etc are well laid concrete roads. However even the best laid concrete roads wont be as nice as a well laid asphalt road.

Sometimes I wonder why they even bother to do this nonsense, asphalt is perfect and easily recycled, there are machines already in use in India that can recycle the top layer as it moves along.

Here is a video of Cold milling (language is Malayalam but you get the picture).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd6uNIymOVU&t=364s

[Ragul]

IIRC I've driven on sections where the concrete is overlaid with a thin layer of asphalt - it is a heavenly experience compared to driving on concrete. Why I believe this was a layer of asphalt topping is that sections had work-off to reveal the concrete below.

The driving experience on Bangalore concrete rooads while no longer riddled with pot-holes is horrible - it seems that proper leveling has not been done and my car is forever juddering even in the absence of road damage.

If the asphalt layering approach can be adopted all over it would dramatically improve user experience at lower cost than a fully asphalt road I imagine.

[sreenivass]

I love the ride quality and low noise highspeed on blacktops. Some concrete roads seem to generate more noise and feel like running stones.

I really hope some technologist comes up with a way to combine these, may be asphalt on concrete to get the best of both.

An important point from practicality perspective, our contractors do a miserbale job on blacktops anyways. The city ones hardly are good for 3-4 months in a year after which we see craters and breakers.

Another idea may be, use more concrete roads in the cities and more black tops on highways. More gravelly blacktops (not smooth tar roads we see) ones seem to offer better grip and ride.

[Tucker48]

Voted for asphalt due to reasons already stated above.
I have driven on many banked asphalt roads but none of the concrete roads I have driven on(as far as I remember) are banked.

[Indian2003]

I have driven a lot on the original aurobahns in Germany in the 70s, the ones made by Hitler. They were very unconfortable because every 10 meters or so they had expansion slots filled with asphalt. It was very noisy and hard on the suspension and wheels.

About 10 years ago these roads could be found in the Czech Republic and I avoided them and rather drove the longer smaller roads.

[handsofsteel]

One very big advantage of concrete roads. You can't simply dig it up and build a shoddy speed breaker overnight.
Even the rumbler strips wear out soon

[DeadCenter]

Originally Posted by handsofsteel

One very big advantage of concrete roads. You can't simply dig it up and build a shoddy speed breaker overnight.
Even the rumbler strips wear out soon

This is definitely a huge plus. I'm not sure about other cities but here in Bangalore, on can randomly find out that a road has been dug up for someone's personal water line etc.

But apart from this, I do not agree that asphalt toads last just for a few years. There is a road in my hometown on the west coast, which is the monsoon belt, that hasn't deteriorated in the last 15 years. It is just starting to have tiny potholes. We are deprived from good long lasting asphalt roads because those spending our tax money are not doing right thing by us.

I am constantly nervous driving on wet concrete roads and I avoid those stretches as far as possible.

[JoshMachine]

Prefer driving on asphalt roads. And the epitome of this was, when I drove on the National Expressway-1 between Ahmedabad and Baroda back in 2016.

Here's a YouTube video (not mine) showing just how smooth the ride is:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlIG1pSrKRI

On the other hand, driving on concrete roads has been a terrible experience for me. Just ask anyone who is a regular commuter on the Pune-Mumbai expressway and he/she will only grimace.

[AVIS]

Stagnant pools of water damage asphalt roads. Well designed roads avoid this by providing adequate water drainage. Sloping the road to allow rainwater to flow quickly to the edge where it can be collected in a gutter or a ditch.

Heavy rain should not cause issues for an asphalt road, as long as it's designed to handle that amount of water.