[Misti]

Originally Posted by akima

I've done about 3 British winters on my bike. My tips are:

- assume it takes longer to stop so leave bigger stopping distances
- try and wash road salt off your bike after each ride to prevent corrosion (it's hard and laborious I know; it protects your precious though)
- don't ride at all if you find yourself shivering cold. I've done that and had a few close calls. My thinking was impaired when I was that cold and I made bad decisions. My reaction times were also much slower and it was harder to do things like quickly apply braking force.
- Buy yourself some awesome warm and water proof textile protective gear.
- Same as always: wear all the gear all the time.
- Put one of those emergency foil blanket things in your pocket and keep your phone in a pocket too so in the event you come off your bike, you are badly injured and no one is around, you can keep warm and call for help. This isn't so important if you ride in a heavily populated area, but I'd go as far as saying it's almost essential if you travel in rural or less-populated areas.
- Don't be embarrassed about shifting your weight left or right when corning in order to keep the bike more upright in a corner so you have more grip. I do this a fair bit. If it improves grip at high speed and big lean angles it will also improve grip at lower speeds and lesser lean angles. It also keeps you moving about on your bike thus helping you to keep warm and it gives you feedback from your body about how tense / mobile it is.

Great advice all around!