A lot of local roads, for example in the United States or Morocco, or even Spain, are unsurfaced, so I normally talk first of all about OFF-TARMAC roads. There's a reason for that. My previous travel insurance company was OK covering me for accidents on pistes/tracks as long as they were considered local roads. The fact they were unsurfaced was immaterial.
The definition of piste for biking is the same as skiing, and is a 'groomed track'. In the case of Morocco the groomed tracks are maintained by the local—and are thus by my definition, local roads). These pistes run over whatever is on the ground locally they might be sand, earth, grit, stones, rocks, or whatever and combinations thereof.
A metalled piste, or macadam piste, uses crushed and graded rocks brought in from elsewhere normally by the local government. Some of these macadam pistes are then given a thin layer of asphalt and are then tarmacadam (or tarmac).
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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)
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