A winter commuter's bike checklist: brakes, tyres and seeing in UK drizzle

British winter cycling is not actually dangerous. It is damp, dark, and full of manageable annoyances, but injury rates on a well-maintained bike through November to March are not meaningfully worse than any other time of year — the Department for Transport's reported road casualties statistics show cycling injuries clustered in rush hours and summer weekends rather than winter commutes. What winter does punish is neglect. A bike that was fine in September becomes marginal in November because the specific failure modes of rain, salt, and short daylight add up differently.

This is the half-hour checklist. Six items, one per weekend over the back end of October, and the commute through February becomes a different proposition.

Brake pads: measure them, don't eye them

A rim-brake pad has a wear line moulded into the rubber. A disc-brake pad has a service-limit thickness typically between 0.8mm and 1.5mm depending on manufacturer. Neither is reliably readable by eye from the saddle. Both can go from "fine" to "metal on rotor" in a week of wet November commuting, because wet grit is an abrasive the pads were not designed for.

The measurement: rim brakes, you want more than 1mm of pad above the wear line. Disc brakes, pop the pads out (one pin per caliper, two minutes of work) and measure the pad material above the backing plate with a ruler or caliper. Shimano, Avid, SRAM and TRP all publish service limits on their respective product pages. If you are within 25 per cent of the limit, replace now; a wet-ride descent is not the time to discover you are out of pad.

New pads need bedding in — twenty medium-effort stops from 15 mph on a dry road before they reach full power. Doing that on the first dark Monday morning of winter is a bad choice. Bed them in on a Sunday.

Tyre pressure: lower, not higher

Most riders over-inflate tyres in winter because the common sense is "harder tyre, less rolling resistance". On wet UK tarmac this is wrong. The sidewall maximum is 90 psi; the summer pressure that feels fast is maybe 85 psi; the wet-road pressure that gives you grip and confidence on painted road markings is 65-75 psi for a 25mm road tyre, or 45-55 psi for a 32mm hybrid/gravel tyre.

The maths: lower pressure means a larger tyre contact patch, which means more rubber on wet tarmac. The rolling-resistance penalty at 70 psi versus 85 psi on commuting speeds is roughly 2 watts — you will not feel it. The grip difference on a wet manhole cover is transformative.

Check pressures weekly in winter. Tubes lose 5-10 psi per week passively; a bike that sat at 80 psi on Monday will be at 65 by Friday without warning. A track pump with a gauge (Lezyne, Topeak and Bontrager all do reliable sub-£40 options) is the bit of workshop kit that repays its cost within a season.

Lights: law, legality, and what actually works

UK law on bike lights — the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989 — requires a white front light, a red rear light, and a red rear reflector, plus amber pedal reflectors on bikes manufactured after 1985, during the hours of darkness. That is the minimum for being legal. It is well below the minimum for being seen.

Being seen requires two things the law does not mandate: brightness in the horizontal plane (motorists approaching from behind must see the red on a wet night) and side visibility. Side visibility is the overlooked bit. A rear red that is bright enough for A-road closing speeds is close to invisible when seen from 90 degrees — which is how you present at a side junction.

The practical kit: a front light at 400-600 lumens on flashing-plus-constant mode (See.Sense Icon or Lezyne Macro Drive 1300, both under £70); a rear red at 50-100 lumens (See.Sense Ace Rear, Bontrager Flare RT); and additional reflective/light accents on moving parts — ankle bands and wheel reflectors. Moving reflectors catch the eye in a way that static ones do not. The Cycling UK briefing on lights is the one to read for the full legal and practical picture.

Chain and drivetrain: salt is the enemy

Salt on British roads arrives with the first sub-5 °C overnight forecast, usually late November, and stays until March. Salt corrodes steel chains at a rate that would ruin a chain in a single season of neglect. Clean, dry, lube — ten minutes, once a week — is the difference between a chain that lasts 3,000 miles and one that lasts 1,000.

The sequence: wipe the chain with a dry rag to remove the grit, run it through a chain cleaner if it is really gunky (Muc-Off's cleaner tool is £15 and reusable), dry it thoroughly with a fresh rag, and apply wet lube (not dry lube) for winter. One drop per link, run through the gears for thirty seconds, wipe excess. Wet lube repels water; dry lube washes off in the first downpour.

Check chain wear monthly with a chain-checker tool (£7 at any UK bike shop). On a Shimano 11-speed chain, 0.5 per cent wear is the service limit; past 0.75 per cent and the chain damages the cassette as well. Replacing a chain is £20 for the part and ten minutes. Replacing a chain plus a cassette because you ignored it is £60-£90.

Reflectors and pedals: the check that gets you stopped

This is the one that catches commuters off guard. If you fit clip-in pedals (SPD-SL, SPD, Look) to a bike manufactured after 1985, you have removed the amber pedal reflectors, which strictly breaks the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989 at night. Police enforcement is rare, but it happens — particularly in London and Manchester during winter safety campaigns — and the standard outcome is a fixed-penalty notice.

The fix: amber reflective ankle bands, which satisfy the "ankle reflective device" interpretation most police forces accept. Alternatively, SPD pedals with integrated reflectors (Shimano PD-A530 is the classic one — SPD one side, flat with reflector on the other). Reflective bands are £6 at any bike shop; the pedals are £50.

A wet-weather commuter who has sorted brakes, tyres and lights but is riding clip-in pedals with no reflector or band is technically illegal and practically less visible at junctions. It is the cheapest fix on this list.

The mudguards conversation

Finally, mudguards. There is a British cycling culture that treats mudguards as uncool, a culture that shivers through November with grit-striped backs and spray-blinded glasses. It is a losing culture. Full-coverage mudguards (SKS Chromoplastic, Crud Roadracer Mk3) keep spray off you, off your drivetrain, off the rider behind you, and off your face. They weigh 400 grams. They fit most bikes with 32mm clearance or more.

A pair of Chromoplastics is £35 at most UK bike shops. Fitting takes forty minutes with a bike stand, longer without. If your frame has no mudguard eyes, clip-on versions (SKS Raceblade Pro) cost £50 and fit via friction mounts to most race-geometry frames. There is no honest reason not to run them November-to-March in the UK.

A ten-minute version of the above

If you only have ten minutes before this weekend: pump tyres to 70 psi (road) or 55 psi (hybrid), check brake pad thickness with a quick squeeze, run lights through their modes to confirm batteries hold, wipe and re-lube the chain. That carries you through to a proper half-hour service next weekend. It does not carry you through January.

The half-hour service is the one that matters. Brakes measured, tyres checked and inflated, lights tested, chain cleaned and lubed, reflectors or ankle bands confirmed, mudguards on or ordered. Six items, one tea break. February is the month in which that effort pays itself back several times over, usually in the form of not stopping in a layby in the dark trying to fix something that should have been fixed in October.