Keep track of road repair reports if they are in your local news. Once, when I was commuting some 80 - 90 miles a day, I was riding to work on a pitch dark night. Came around a bend and found that they had put down a fresh layer of blacktop a few miles long on I-5 over the weekend. I was in the middle lane in it was a section that had no bank on either side, so I couldn't see a thing. I slowed way down and eased over to the side far enough to be able to follow parallel to the dirt along the edge of the pavement.
