Now we move onto riding technique and enjoying ourselves! The important thing is to sit down and relax. Stay calm and just ride smoothly and normally. If you tense up you risk slipping. On flat roads stay in a slightly higher gear than normal. This will prevent you spinning your wheels. On up-hills pedal smoothly whilst staying in the saddle, this may mean selecting a lower gear than normal. Do not combine braking and turning. Brake in a straight line, then release the brake and turn. Use your back brake more than normal and be careful with the front brake. Stay in the saddle with your feet on the pedals. Some people say to put both feet down on ice so you have 4 contact points, this is a bad idea as you have less weight on each contact point and less ability to keep the bike upright. In fact it is almost impossible to balance a bike with just a little weight on the saddle and your feet spread wide. You're likely to have the bike slide out and then do the splits over it! Painful! You need to be ultra aware of your surroundings. Cars may be losing control and sliding sideways towards you, cars approaching junctions may not be able to stop as they normally do. No road markings are visible so people might not give way or stop where they should. 28/2/05 addition Another thing to be aware of is the noise your tyres are making. If they're "scrunching" through snow then all is well, but if they suddenly go silent you are on ice! Likewise, if you're on an apparently wet road but you suddenly start hearing crunching and crackling you are heading onto a surface that is starting to ice (but full ice will again be completely silent). Now, as always, is not the time to be listening to music or wearing earphones. As usual keep OFF the pavement. You shouldn't be there anyway you should be in the road. Pavements are going to be more icy than the roads, especially after many pedestrians have walked there. The same goes for off road cycle lanes, they aren't gritted so will be much more dangerous than normal. It may be safer to use the roads than use the facilities.

Surfaces.