DaveGos wrote:80 percent of incidents and aggression I experience towards me as a cyclist are 4 by 4
In practical terms my personal experience and understanding is that if you truly need better grip etc get good tyres , chains in snow and or lower your tyre pressure , far more effective than a 4 by 4
I drove the whole West Falklands on muddy dirt roads using a 4 by 4 that you have to get out and manually engage , never got near to engaging it and they are not good roads, also saw plenty of 4 by 4 s get stuck in the bogs there
Forget chains, messy, inconvenient and restrict you to low speeds on snow. Winter tyres, otherwise known as snow tyres perform far better. A two wheel drive car on snow tyres will beat a 4x4 on normal tyres over snow. Having spent 10 years as an expat in E Europe I have had plenty of experience of driving on snow.
In the UK most serious 4x4s (discovery, landcruiser, 4x4 pick up) run on M&S tyres whilst most soft roaders run on normal tyres. Whilst M&S tyres do perform better than regular tyres over snow their performance is inferior to proper snow tyres. None of the above grip on ice.