Tips for Winter Biking
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.30.06
me on a typical February day (not)
Warren usually does the bike posts, but he is in Australia and somehow we don't think winter biking is a challenge there. Tombola at ::Hugg points us to an article with Ten ways of making cycling bearable in November (not that November in London or even Toronto is tough) but that will work all winter. The video of a Toronto winter rider also has a good tip: get a junker bike, the road salt will corrode it in a season or two. We would add our own tip: call your City Councillor and demand that they keep the bike lanes plowed.::Times Online
Tip. Take a nice long sauna first and you'll have about 20 minutes to ride nekked before you feel it.
What bike lanes?
I ride all winter in Toronto.
Two tips: watch out for black ice. If you hit some, ride straight over it without turning or braking. And stick to the side streets - much more pleasant and safe.
The batteries last forever in those blinking lights and they keep blinking at a stop.
"tip: call your City Councillor and demand that they keep the bike lanes plowed"
So, in order to subsidise the few dozen people who are fanatical enough to ride a bicycle in a Canadian winter (-38 in my city this week, not counting wind-chill), taxpayers should run extra plows, bobcats and backhoes? Besides being expensive to operate, doesn't this heavy equipment also spew dreaded CO2?
Or maybe the plan is to hasten global warmerizing, so you can enjoy comfortable cycling all year round? In that case, I'm all for it.
-38 in my city this week
You live near the North Pole?
Or maybe the plan is to hasten global warmerizing, so you can enjoy comfortable cycling all year round? In that case, I'm all for it.
You hate life that much? So why do you come to this website?
spring for really good rain gear. make sure to get galoshes to cover your shoes, and just think of how sexy you are on your bike. That will keep you warm.
I'm all for getting out there and riding, but this is also a great time to nnot ride and make some bike movies instead. The deadline for submissions to the international Filmed by Bike, a festival of bike-themed movie shorts, is March 1. Start now!
~ Team FBB
Milton, I like your point. Sometimes environmentalism drifts into becoming egotistical ("Look at how environmental Im being").
I would say it could be a practical concern to plow the bike paths, but we cyclists are middle class and college educated so we can find other means on transportation.
I rode my bike on the roads in winter last year, but this year in Massachusetts its been a frigid 60-70 F in November/December.
Anonymous wrote:
"You live near the North Pole?"
Nowhere near. It usually doesn't get that cold at the North Pole. You don't get out much, do you?
"You hate life that much?"
Not at all. I love life. I'd love it even more, if it weren't 10 months of winter and 2 months of bad snowmobiling.
"So why do you come to this website?"
I'm something of an amateur social pathologist.
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Michael wrote:
"Milton, I like your point. Sometimes environmentalism drifts into becoming egotistical ("Look at how environmental Im being")."
Egotistical? That's the least of their problems. Egomaniacal, is often more like it. You might as well add to the list hubristic, grandiose, imperious, smug, sanctimonious, puritanical and conceited.
Examine the sentence, "[C]all your City Councillor and demand that they keep the bike lanes plowed".
Notice the word, demand? People such as this are on nothing less than a Holy Crusade, having exclusive franchise on The Truth, inconvenient or not. Ergo, the local peasantry must be compelled to tithe generously in aid of their Godly mission.
"I rode my bike on the roads in winter last year, but this year in Massachusetts its been a frigid 60-70 F in November/December."
Lucky you! And has the Earth gone spinning off into the Sun, as the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse cut a swath through the countryside?
No, apparently not.
Michael wrote:
"Milton, I like your point. Sometimes environmentalism drifts into becoming egotistical ("Look at how environmental Im being")."
Egotistical? That's the least of their problems. Egomaniacal, is often more like it. You might as well add to the list hubristic, grandiose, imperious, smug, sanctimonious, puritanical and conceited.
Examine the sentence, "[C]all your City Councillor and demand that they keep the bike lanes plowed".
Notice the word, demand? People such as this are on nothing less than a Holy Crusade, having exclusive franchise on The Truth, inconvenient or not. Ergo, the local peasantry must be compelled to tithe generously in aid of their Godly mission.
"I rode my bike on the roads in winter last year, but this year in Massachusetts its been a frigid 60-70 F in November/December."
Lucky you! And has the Earth gone spinning off into the Sun, as the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse cut a swath through the countryside?
No, apparently not.
You're very entertaining, Milt.