42 Tips To Help You Ride Your Bike All Winter

Me on my bike this morning

It is really cold out there, and from Florida north it is the winter biking season. Over the past few years TreeHugger and Planet Green have done a number of posts on the subject of how to dress for success in winter biking. It isn't always easy, and very much depends on the kind of bike riding you do.

For instance, I have completely changed my winter wardrobe since I got my Strida, with its more stately pace, and since I started reading Copenhagenize, which makes the point that bikes are transportation, not sport, and you should feel comfortable in whatever you want to wear, you have the freedom to be in the street in whatever you want, just like a driver or a pedestrian. And no doubt some will criticize me for being in all black, but I have lights for night, and I am an architect before I am a cyclist, and everyone knows that architects always wear black.

In Toronto where I live, the city doesn't make it easy for winter bikers. The bike lanes become snow lanes and where they run parallel to parking, the cars now fill the bike lane completely. There is no buffer like they have in New York's wonderful bike lanes. More: Winter Biking Isn't So Bad

It isn't like Copenhagen or Sweden, where they have special ploughs designed for the bike lanes and do them early. Last year Toronto promised to clear the bike lanes, but the way they are designed, it is almost impossible. Toronto to Plough Bike Paths This Winter

The City of Boulder goes all out to make winter biking safe and easy. "Multi-use paths in the city of Boulder are maintained to high-level transportation standards. Separate snow removal crews begin plowing the city's multi-use paths at exactly the same time that other crews are plowing city streets." That is what every city should do. It's Winter Bike To Work Day In Boulder

I wear a thin balaclava under my helmet to keep me warm, but in Denmark, the few people who wear helmets have the option of Riding Pretty. Helmet Head Takes on New Meaning, or Another Way to Warm Up Winter Bike Commutes

Photo Credit Michael Oryl MobilBurn.com at Icebike

On Planet Green we did a two-part series on Riding Your Bike All Winter. the first part based on Anna Shepard of the Times. She recommends lobster gloves, the farmer's nose blow, and wear two pair of socks. Ride Your Bike All Winter: Part 1

Part 2 has some of our own points, including planning your routes, protecting your extremities and remembering that it is really exercise and you don't have to dress as warmly as you think. Ride Your Bike All Winter: Part 2

More great tips for winter biking