Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge UK riders,wots this on our roads?

if you live in good old blighty,and ride in in this wintery weather,you might have noticed your bike doing more than its fair share of slideing(even when theres no ice!), the local athorities seem to be spreading somthing other than rock salt on our roads.yes it might stop the frost from tekeing hold of the roads,but in my oppinion its just as leathal to us bikers!,combined with the damp roads this 'new'stuf is like skateing on ice!,chatting to a fellow biker,he said its supposed to be less corrosive to our bikes than the road salt they used to use?, well it might be less corrosive!, but its more deadly than a rattlesnake on viagra!i was beind(for a few seconds) a gritter wagon tonight and i could feel the bike loosing contact with the road,i overtook the gritter a.s.a.p. only to aproach a junction that had been 'gritted'my bike slid on what can only be described as slime!,what crap are they chucking on our roads?. when i got to my brothers house this 'slime'was stuck to my bike like glue!,i managed to rinse most of it off.it might be less corrosive, but i think they need to look at what its doing to plastics and the grip of 2wheels(not 4).

Not been out on mine for a few days Alan so cannot comment. But I will be attending the local meet in the morning, so will look out for some of this stuff, if they are spreading it around...

Lancashire seem to spread grit salt on the road, I just give the bike a good clean when I get back home. But I will be on the Suzi in the morning, not taking any chances with the America...

I noticed on the news yesterday that the state(CT) will no
longer be using the traditional sand/salt mix on the roads.
Instead, they will be spraying some sort of liquid calcium
chloride(or something). This includes the Federal Hwys, like
I95, I84, and I91, along with all the state roads.
Appearently, they're concerned with the cost of cleaning up
the sand(road sweeping, and vacuuming out the catch basins).
I think alot of places in NY do this already.

I'm not sure of the environmental impact this is going to
have on the watershed, but it should make for better riding
in the Spring.

I'm tired of Winter, and it hasn't even officially started yet!
Uncle Charlie

It's a by-product from molasses so it's sugar-based. I know molasses keeps you "regular" but this stuff is enough to make you sh*t yourself. I think they've only been using it for a couple of years but already there have been numerous complaints about it being slippery. As usual, the manufacturers claim to have received no adverse feedback. Like yeah. This stuff is lethal to motorcyclists. See this:
de-icer link