A SMOOTHER ride is on the way for cyclists on the popular Wangoom Road training route on Warrnambool’s northern outskirts.
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Moyne Shire Council is set to give bike lanes built last year on Wangoom Road a final seal next month.
The council’s physical services director Trev Greenberger said the bikes lanes will be sealed with small 7mm gravel and the traffic lanes with standard 10mm gravel.
The rough state of the bike lanes has drawn comment from many cyclists since they were built last year.
However, the council said soon after the lanes were constructed in 2013 that they would be given another seal this year.
Warrnambool cyclist Michael Artz was among those to recently express concern about the rough state of the bike lanes.
In a letter to the editor in the The Standard this week, Mr Artz said the Wangoom Road bike lanes were full of potholes and one had a long seam running along it.
He said their poor state forced him to ride in the traffic lane, much to the consternation of a passing motorist.
Mr Greenberger said the additional seal planned for next month should improve the ride for cyclists.
The cycling experience on Wangoom Road is also expected to improve further when Warrnambool City Council completes its roadworks near Wangoom Road’s intersection with Horne Road.
A council spokesman said a project to upgrade Horne Road was due for completion by the end of May and would involve laying down new asphalt at the Wangoom and Horne roads intersection.
In recent weeks, the roadworks have reduced traffic to a single lane on an unsealed section of Wangoom Road.
The $8.3 million Horne Road project will provide a major road link into Warrnambool’s long-awaited new industrial estate on the city’s eastern outskirts.
The upgrade will turn Horne Road from a gravel lane into a heavy-duty carriageway from the Princes Highway to Wangoom Road and is being funded by the state government, Warrnambool City Council and developers.
Moyne Shire constructed the Wangoom Road bike lanes last year following long-running friction between cyclists and motorists.
Motorists said some cyclists were “hogging the road” and risking a serious accident by riding more than two abreast.
The two-metre-wide bike lanes were built over 3.3 kilometres on both sides of the road with VicRoads providing the bulk of the funding.
The project involved widening Wangoom Road from 180 metres east of its intersection with Horne Road to about one kilometre south of the Spring Flat Road intersection.
Mr Greenberger said last year the council had built the bike lanes for as far as it could along Wangoom Road with the available money.
ehimmelreich@fairfaxmedia.com.au