Plainly put: cycling in snow and rain and -10° C is not a big deal, once you are used to it. The trick is to start in summer, do it every day and just never stop for any weather, e.g. for your work or uni commute.
Obviously you need something that protects you from occasional rain or at least some dry and clean clothes to change into, but apart from that, the seasonal change will not be harsh. It is usually gradual, and yes, you will at some point want to wear gloves, and long pants, at some point even long underwear (or specific biking clothes), but it is never suddenly cold. Actually you become less sensitive to the cold overall. At least that was my experience.
To be fair, I stopped doing that a few years ago, since not having a shower at work makes slightly longer commutes uncomfortable with co-workers and clients, obviously. And I became more and more afraid of my laptop in my backpack, because yes, you will get wet, your stuff will get wet, you will slip on snow, etc.
Is it worth it to get bike snow tires, the ones with knobby studs, for the snowy months, or do you simply get used to the unsteady ground after a while?
Tyres with spikes are pretty much mandatory if you're using a touring bike (mountain bikes with balloon tyres may cope fairly well with snow, I guess) on snow and ice. IMHO they're not optional. And you don't tend to get used to slipping on ice.
(Edit: I'm in Germany; we tend to get snow and ice in winter and the cycle paths are not always cleared immediately.)
Although to be honest, around here we almost never have persistent (packed) snowy streets anymore (those usually have very good grip). The winters are milder with every year, so most snow just disappears in a few hours, and most cycle-paths and streets are salted heavily, so it is just wet most of the times.
The only really tricky situations were right in the middle of heavy snow-fall, where a lot of salt was already on the street or being added. The street is soap then, and I don't know if any tire will help you with that.
It is another thing if you live where there is a lot of snow, and often fresh powder - let's say more than 15cm soft surface on a regular basis. I guess yes, you would sink with most regular tires there, then you need large balloons and a bike that can take them.
It depends on how much snow you get. Normal tires are fine on snow once you get used to it. So if you have icy conditions just for a few weeks, it's probably not worth the hassle to switch. (I've been riding a road bike throughout all winter for more than a decade now. Riding on snow is fine. The only dangerous situation in winter is actually on warmer days without snow, where one doesn't expect anything, but when the road has frozen over invisibly in some dark corner.)
As a guy who has commuted by bike for the better part of 20 years, I leave my bike in the house and drive in my car when it's snowing or icy for the same reason that I wouldn't drive a motorcycle. Two wheels in those conditions is just dangerous. Watching the die-hards in Portland slide out and eat pavement on icy roads is humorous every year. While there was a time I relished the adventure, I'm just too old for that kind of risk. I suppose I'd be more comfortable with a 3/4 wheeled bike, but there's still the risk of other car drivers bouncing off you, which they do a lot in Portland in the winter.
It's best to leave the bike in the cold in freezing months, frequent thawing/freezing will result in water condensing in your cables and elsewhere and then freezing.
For me, I'd ride a road bike for cold without snow, and a mountain bike for when it snows. Hard pack and fresh snow are pretty easy on a mountain bike. The days I hated were the ones where we had 6inches to a foot of snow and people had half a day to walk on it so it'd be half packed down.
I have metal-studded tires for winter. They make a huge difference on ice, but they make less of a difference on fresh snow. For snow a fat bike is better. If you're doing a lot of winter biking, I'd suggest one or the other. You can get studded fat tires, but they're expensive and I don't usually see anyone with them.
I live in the Boston area, and the number of days where studded tires would make a difference is small enough that it's not worth the hassle. I ride every day, and I've never bothered. It doesn't take very long to get a good sense of what speeds your tires will handle in bad weather.
It was alluded to in a sibling post, but snow isn't all that bad (at low enough speeds). It's ice that's the problem.
So, those treated paths in Finland are almost certainly safer (from a slipping/sliding perspective) than the Mid-Atlantic US, where paths melt and refreeze throughout the day, leaving a slick layer on top.
Having commuted by bicycle for a number of years (~25 mile round trip) I found high winds to be far riskier and more unpleasant than snow or cold (mind you - being in Scotland its not getting that cold and snow would at most be for a few weeks at a time). I was almost blown off my bike onto a truck once - which gave me a bad scare.
Oh yes, black ice is nasty. But I used to slow down during very cold mornings anyway and only slipped once in a remarkable fashion with rather slim tires.
If you're slightly used to biking, you will have a foot down almost immediately (which will also slip, granted), but it almost always becomes a rather comical slip that takes you to the ground rather slowly instead of a neck-breaking action stunt in my experience. I guess it is different if you have full racing gear and a street racing bike, don't want to slip with that.
I never had a fall on black ice with a mountain bike but I did have a spectacular and very painful fall on ice using a lightweight "racing" style bike years ago that made me very wary.
I rode a set of Nokian studded tires for three winters, no wear on the studs. I learned:
(1) studs are tungsten carbide, which has a Mohs hardness of about 9 (similar to sapphire)
(2) most important thing: giant, wide tires will float on the snow and are not as safe as a narrower, touring tire with studs -- the narrower tire won't float on the snow and will give you control
Cold is actually a little bit counterintuitive on a bike. Being too warm is actually a greater concern than being too cold. Bundling up too much actually causes you to sweat and the sweat ends up freezing, which is bad. My advice is to usually wear thinner layers, and have more layers that way you can remove layers if you're too hot. My baseline warmth is basically whatever you'd wear if you weren't cycling and then remove a layer or two. The first couple minutes of riding might be a little cold, but you warm up very quickly.
Gloves are absolutely a must, even on days that are brisk but not freezing. Beyond that, something to cover your ears on cold days is usually a good idea.
I don't agree about -10 C not being a big deal. On my previous bike commute my winter travel time was under 25 minutes. With the right studded snow tires I had enough control over my bike unless snow was very deep. Clothing was manageable, and I could keep temperatures under control and it wasn't a huge deal.
My bike commute now is 20+ miles, and takes a little over an hour in good weather on my road bike. Studded snow tires are obviously much slower, and the ride is much longer. It is challenging to use the correct clothing over a longer distance. My core stays warm and i have to be able to vent it so I don't sweat. I can keep my hands from getting too cold, but it is incredibly difficult to keep my feet warm after about 45-50 minutes in. Exposed skin over an hour gives frostbite where at 20-30 minutes it won't. I have since given up on commuting when it's below 20F now.
One of the chief problems of transportation during winter is "How do we minimize accidents while half a meter of snow has fallen within a 12 hour period?" The problem is two fold: roads become slippery, and as they are plowed, the sides of them fill up with snow, reducing lane size.
Without dedicated bike lanes, a reduction in lane size is bad enough (it is hard to share the roads when there is no road to share). Add in drivers trying to swerve around bicyclists (a really dangerous action on icy roads), and you have a recipe for accidents.
As this article points out, advanced planning is key. But convincing Canadians (in places like Manitoba), who have very low population density and very far stretches of road to build/maintain, to sacrifice infrastructure dollars for bike lanes would be a tough political move. Finland is about half the size of Manitoba and has 4x the population. That's an 8x spending advantage in terms of roads!
Europeans have a much easier time with infrastructure than Canada (and the US to a lesser extent) because of significantly higher population density. I know I'd love to have European-style infrastructure, but it just isn't practical.
Personally, I wouldn't feel safe riding a bicycle in the winter. Not with our roads.
You know what happens to many bike lanes in winter around here (Germany)? The snow from the road gets heaped on them... It's usual for people to ride on the road then.
The same thing happens here with bike lanes that share the road.
But once enough snow accumulation has happened, a lost lane will be unavailable until spring. The dedicated bike path that cuts through my community is closed during the winter and much of the spring (too much snow accumulation). The snow plow budget in most years couldn't possibly cover it.
In fact in Copenhagen at least the bike lanes are cleared much more reliably than the road. The city owns many more of these bike lane snow-removal vehicles (which are small and fairly cheap) and only a few of the big road-plowing trucks. Salting the bicycle lanes also takes less salt, so tends to be done more readily.
I am not saying stay home for a month but just give it a little time for the roads to be cleared. If it snows 0.5m in 12 hours there is just no way to clear roads within a few hours.
You don't need to clear 12h worth of snow in a few hours, you send the plows to work early when it starts snowing and keep plowing until the snowing stops. This is how it's done in snowy places and people never stay at home due to snow.
Cars rarely slide around in these places, they have studded tires and drivers are used to driving on snow/ice most if the year. But yes separated bike lanes/trails, like in the article's city, are much nicer than driving along with cars.
I have lived in snowy places and pretty much in all of them there was chaos for the first day(s) after a big snow storm. Definitely not the best day to be biking. After things have settled down, absolutely no problem.
Well, that quote was an example following a more general idea about waiting after it snows. But yes, that amount would be a big enough snow storm to make biking a tad sweaty endeavour immediately after.
While I was figuring out winter cycling in Utah I did fall a few times on icy sections. This was never a big deal because those sections were walking and cycling paths. However, falling while riding on sections of road that I have to share with a car becomes incredibly dangerous.
Just as cars would be useless for much of the winter if roads weren't maintained, well-maintained bicycle infrastructure works just fine in the winter.
Sensible clothing, just as one needs to walk or ski, is all one needs to bike in the winter. Studded tires can make up for defects in infrastructure maintenance.
And having sunny outdoor time midwinter is decidely good for my mood— people pay thousands of dollars to take ski vacations, after all.
Why? The only condition I would prefer some tunnels is during the melting season, else winter is really one of the best times to bike (though I do not experience -20°C every day).
When I was a grad student I would ride a mountain bike up the hill to Cornell in Ithaca. I was more sure footed in the snow & ice with the bike than I was on foot, even using a martial arts collected run.
On a really bad day I would take the bus, but I almost always rode my bike. Of course there was that time I rode home in a thunderstorm and was so afraid of the lightning that I didn't see the parked car that I crashed into.
Winter biking is better than summer -- you can add layers to get warmer in winter, but never subtract to get cooler in summer. I've year round commuted for years in Boston. I am seeing more and more people ride all year. It's awesome.
I cannot agree more. I took a lot of wonderful bike trips this february when I had some free time, and the conditions were great because you cannot really get too hot. And to be honest, that not many other bikers are around makes it even nicer ...
To be honest, I think that riding in fresh snow is actually the best kind of riding you can have, and sometimes have been taking a longer route to work or home just to increase the joy of it (in traffic free areas). I also have the feeling that I am actually safer on two wheels plus two feet than just walking in icy conditions although one obviously has to be a little more careful. The only bug nucance about winter is melting, then it really sucks and I trie to get the shortest, driest path possible.
I really doubt this, I think this is a bunch of young, healthy enthusiasts doing something that being young and healthy can counter. I really doubt any form of wind chill at those temperatures will be pleasant, nor will slipping and sliding over a road covered with slush and salt
I know this place has an unhealthy worship of cycling, but this is a bit ridiculous.
I moved to Trondheim, Norway around 4 years ago. Winter cycling is pretty normal here, and it isn't just the young. Basically everyone gets out in the weather - so much that the saying goes along the lines of, "There isn't bad weather, only bad clothes." Pre-school children spend a lot of time outside, and fresh air is considered healthy.
And folks are biking over sidewalks covered in a couple inches of ice, I might add. On hills and in mountains, it seems.
And no, it isn't always pleasant, but you get used to it and learn how to dress properly. Afterwards, it isn't a big deal.
People have a tendency to overestimate the hassle and inconvenience of things they don't like, and underestimate the hassle and inconvenience of their existing lifestyle.
I don't bike to work nearly enough, and I absolutely love cars, but it baffles my mind how much money and hassle people expend on cars that are (to them) just a transportation appliance.
For most people on HN, the all-in cost of operating a modest car (~$12/hr https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/total-cost-owning-car/) is significantly less than the cost of their time while they're in it. And for most people, car is the fastest way to go. So I don't see how the cost is baffling to you.
Yes, some people like to multi-task their exercise by biking (although then it's much harder to multi-task your audiobooks), and yes some people have short commutes that are slightly faster by bike, and yes some people just enjoy biking. But for most people, transportation is about fast reliable transportation, and if you're on HN your time is likely worth several times the car cost.
(Obviously, people can spend a significant fraction of even large salaries on a luxury car, but that's a personal choice that doesn't have much to do with economical transportation. It doesn't make sense to tell someone driving a Mercedes that they could save money by riding a bike.)
The problem with this time=money calculation is that some people enjoy riding their bike, just like some people enjoy driving their car. For me, the time I spent on my commute is not lost, is valuable relaxation time. If I had more time I would use it to ride my bike more :).
I explicitly acknowledged that this is an important factor for a minority of people in my comment. This caveat is not particularly relevant to the claim that people spend a baffling amount of money on cars.
You're accounting for direct cost, but this doesn't account for the total value of each one. You did mention it, but for most office workers getting a reasonable amount of exercise is difficult and a big limiting factor in their overall health and well-being.
my mtb it kitted out with 2.4 (front) and 2.2 on the back (Continental Xking) 29" tyres. That's about as wide as i can go given my forks and chainstays. Except for ice-covered patches, is this a sane rig to commute in the snow? Second, accumulated snow from the plows pretty much buries the bike lanes, no? anyone have experience whether cars reasonable about sharing more of the road?
57 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 117 ms ] threadObviously you need something that protects you from occasional rain or at least some dry and clean clothes to change into, but apart from that, the seasonal change will not be harsh. It is usually gradual, and yes, you will at some point want to wear gloves, and long pants, at some point even long underwear (or specific biking clothes), but it is never suddenly cold. Actually you become less sensitive to the cold overall. At least that was my experience.
To be fair, I stopped doing that a few years ago, since not having a shower at work makes slightly longer commutes uncomfortable with co-workers and clients, obviously. And I became more and more afraid of my laptop in my backpack, because yes, you will get wet, your stuff will get wet, you will slip on snow, etc.
(Edit: I'm in Germany; we tend to get snow and ice in winter and the cycle paths are not always cleared immediately.)
Although to be honest, around here we almost never have persistent (packed) snowy streets anymore (those usually have very good grip). The winters are milder with every year, so most snow just disappears in a few hours, and most cycle-paths and streets are salted heavily, so it is just wet most of the times.
The only really tricky situations were right in the middle of heavy snow-fall, where a lot of salt was already on the street or being added. The street is soap then, and I don't know if any tire will help you with that.
It is another thing if you live where there is a lot of snow, and often fresh powder - let's say more than 15cm soft surface on a regular basis. I guess yes, you would sink with most regular tires there, then you need large balloons and a bike that can take them.
Fenders and lights are essential.
So, those treated paths in Finland are almost certainly safer (from a slipping/sliding perspective) than the Mid-Atlantic US, where paths melt and refreeze throughout the day, leaving a slick layer on top.
Mind you black ice could be nasty.
If you're slightly used to biking, you will have a foot down almost immediately (which will also slip, granted), but it almost always becomes a rather comical slip that takes you to the ground rather slowly instead of a neck-breaking action stunt in my experience. I guess it is different if you have full racing gear and a street racing bike, don't want to slip with that.
(1) studs are tungsten carbide, which has a Mohs hardness of about 9 (similar to sapphire)
(2) most important thing: giant, wide tires will float on the snow and are not as safe as a narrower, touring tire with studs -- the narrower tire won't float on the snow and will give you control
Gloves are absolutely a must, even on days that are brisk but not freezing. Beyond that, something to cover your ears on cold days is usually a good idea.
My bike commute now is 20+ miles, and takes a little over an hour in good weather on my road bike. Studded snow tires are obviously much slower, and the ride is much longer. It is challenging to use the correct clothing over a longer distance. My core stays warm and i have to be able to vent it so I don't sweat. I can keep my hands from getting too cold, but it is incredibly difficult to keep my feet warm after about 45-50 minutes in. Exposed skin over an hour gives frostbite where at 20-30 minutes it won't. I have since given up on commuting when it's below 20F now.
A former buddy of mine would use those for his MTB-Training in Winter. There are options intended for to -20° C IIRC.
Without dedicated bike lanes, a reduction in lane size is bad enough (it is hard to share the roads when there is no road to share). Add in drivers trying to swerve around bicyclists (a really dangerous action on icy roads), and you have a recipe for accidents.
As this article points out, advanced planning is key. But convincing Canadians (in places like Manitoba), who have very low population density and very far stretches of road to build/maintain, to sacrifice infrastructure dollars for bike lanes would be a tough political move. Finland is about half the size of Manitoba and has 4x the population. That's an 8x spending advantage in terms of roads!
Europeans have a much easier time with infrastructure than Canada (and the US to a lesser extent) because of significantly higher population density. I know I'd love to have European-style infrastructure, but it just isn't practical.
Personally, I wouldn't feel safe riding a bicycle in the winter. Not with our roads.
But once enough snow accumulation has happened, a lost lane will be unavailable until spring. The dedicated bike path that cuts through my community is closed during the winter and much of the spring (too much snow accumulation). The snow plow budget in most years couldn't possibly cover it.
In fact in Copenhagen at least the bike lanes are cleared much more reliably than the road. The city owns many more of these bike lane snow-removal vehicles (which are small and fairly cheap) and only a few of the big road-plowing trucks. Salting the bicycle lanes also takes less salt, so tends to be done more readily.
I honestly think the best answer would be to stay home and work from there.
That was the starting quote. I hope we can agree that that's a big storm.
Sensible clothing, just as one needs to walk or ski, is all one needs to bike in the winter. Studded tires can make up for defects in infrastructure maintenance.
And having sunny outdoor time midwinter is decidely good for my mood— people pay thousands of dollars to take ski vacations, after all.
On a really bad day I would take the bus, but I almost always rode my bike. Of course there was that time I rode home in a thunderstorm and was so afraid of the lightning that I didn't see the parked car that I crashed into.
I know this place has an unhealthy worship of cycling, but this is a bit ridiculous.
And folks are biking over sidewalks covered in a couple inches of ice, I might add. On hills and in mountains, it seems.
And no, it isn't always pleasant, but you get used to it and learn how to dress properly. Afterwards, it isn't a big deal.
I don't bike to work nearly enough, and I absolutely love cars, but it baffles my mind how much money and hassle people expend on cars that are (to them) just a transportation appliance.
Yes, some people like to multi-task their exercise by biking (although then it's much harder to multi-task your audiobooks), and yes some people have short commutes that are slightly faster by bike, and yes some people just enjoy biking. But for most people, transportation is about fast reliable transportation, and if you're on HN your time is likely worth several times the car cost.
(Obviously, people can spend a significant fraction of even large salaries on a luxury car, but that's a personal choice that doesn't have much to do with economical transportation. It doesn't make sense to tell someone driving a Mercedes that they could save money by riding a bike.)
Avg temperature -14c in Jan to 19c in July.
Avg precipitation 19mm April to 65mm August.
Avg windspeed <10mph year round.
UV index +4 in July (50% cloud cover).
Terrain: small and flat.
Conclusion: a tiny, flat city with cool, yet mild weather is a good place to ride a bike year round.
https://www.worldweatheronline.com/v2/weather-averages.aspx?...
http://www.oulu.climatemps.com/
https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Oulu,+Finland/@64.995967,25...