New Pavement
New pavement is a gift. There just a joy to cresting the top of a favorite hill, looking down, and seeing a new, smooth ribbon of blacktop stretching out to the horizon. There’s the quick transition from the road humm off of old blacktop to the silence of new blacktop. The joy or riding on a shoulder completely barren of sand, gravel, or potholes.
Somehow, it just makes you faster.
… and chip-and-seal is the devil’s work.
Actually, I don’t so much mind chip-and-seal and its inherent gravel-laden aftermath (all those years of riding and racing mountain bikes hardened the compusure), but it’s a cheap and silly substitute for real repaving. And around here (or at least amongst the members of my cycling club), people are scared out of the gourds about chip-and-seal roads.
As far as fresh pavement is concerned, though, it is most wonderful: smooth, quiet, zippy, and confidence-inspiring.