Down a truly rough road in my class C?
Need advice please. I've been offered a FHU on a remote ranchette where I go horseback riding, but the easements, which are very rutted and rolling, sort of up-and-down lumps in the road, are enough ...
Forum Discussion
pnichols wrote:
BTW, I have a theory regarding how a washboard road surface comes about: Maaaaaaybe from folks down through the years before the washboard existed driving too fast on the road surface. Perhaps related to the torque on drive axles being applied via a series of pulses from an internal combustion engine's up and down piston motion? I'll bet that roads didn't get "washboarded" in the good old horse-and-buggy days.
The engine vibration has nothing to do with washboarding; it's at a wildly different frequency (at least a few octaves higher). According to the very quick "research" I've done, the main contributors seem to be the speed of traffic--below maybe 5 mph or so it doesn't occur at all--the amount of traffic, and the susceptibility of the road material to be moved about by wheels going over it, which in turn depends on its makeup and the general climatic conditions: whether it's muddy, dusty, etc.
It was likely a far less prevalent problem in horse-and-buggy days due to the slower speed of travel. That does not mean the roads were not rough, of course; horse shoes and skinny iron-bound wheels can tear up dirt pretty well under the right (wrong?) conditions.
