Salted roads for winter riding

One of the nastier aspects of winter rides is ice or black ice (even worse because you can't see it). Several of our riders have come a cropper. Some people prefer not to do unnecessary rides below 3 degrees.

You can see below which roads are salted to reduce the risk. Sadly, cycle paths are rarely salted unless they're right next to roads. It might be worth diverting onto a busier salted road, especially earlier in the day, before ice has a chance to melt.

That's why I like Tar and Chip paths (like the Langstone section of the Hayling Billy Trail), as your tyres ride on the sharp edges of the gravel, a few millimetres above the water and ice, and should crack thin ice and get better grip.

You can see which Hampshire roads are salted at Hampshire Highways salt routes.

Red lines are primary routes, carrying the majority of traffic, salted before forecasted ice, frost or snow.

Blue lines are secondary routes, only treated following prolonged freezing conditions. These are typically single accesses to villages, schools, emergency and other public services not already treated.

Green lines are third priority Community Routes to other Hampshire controlled schools and community facilities such as Health Centres. Treatment will generally only be carried out during periods of prolonged and persistent frost, ice or snow which are expected to continue.

There's a similar West Sussex gritting and incident map, but now via one.network and more fiddly - click the 3 lines symbol in the top left corner to get the data layers menu, then select Driver information, then Winter gritting routes. It was very slow to display when I tried it, so I created an account, but I think I could have just waited.

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About Wilf Forrow

I'm a retired IT consultant, and a touring and utility cyclist. I'm particularly interested in campaigning for better cycle infrastructure, and a member of Sustrans and Cycle Hayling, amongst others. I am fascinated by cycle technology, and especially folders.