During the snow season, is bicycle riding simply impossible?

6 comments

1. Living in a very temperate climate, I cannot really offer firsthand experience. I did have an ex gf who had moved from Chicago where she had biked as main form of transit year round. Roads get plowed and she said it was warmer than waiting for the L.

2. I live in the hills, so yes? I’ve never tried to bike in wet Sierra snow, but I cannot imagine it’d be fun.

3. Bicycles and motorcycles are typically seasonal in my area, though road closures are rather rare besides the mountain passes. We are a 4 season area. You in theory could still bicycle, but the risk of injury is much higher and typically sidewalks are not cleared (the plows here dump the snow on them and people while technically responsible for the sidewalks, dont care to de-iceberg them daily)

4. Transport does not change with snow. Most in the US do not use bicycles as a mode of transport.

   In areas with regular snow, we have infrastructure in place to quickly and efficiently remove snow via plowing and salting. I can count the number of times there’s been total shutdowns in New England of roads and freeways, and that’s been when a blizzard with 2 feet / 0.6 meters of snow hits.

5. Depends on where you live. I used to live in the Denver area and I was able to bike commute in the winter for the most part by sticking to plowed bike trails. But the snow there tends to be very powdery, melts quickly and ice isn’t a big problem.

   I probably wouldn’t do it in New England or the Midwest where bike trails are less common, the snow is wetter/heavier and ice can persist for days or weeks.

6. It’s not impossible to bike in the winter. Roads get plowed and salted, making them passable again. So do bike paths.

   But yes, it really is tougher to bike in the winter, a lot less people do it, and it is a real barrier to making biking a popular and dependable form of transport in cold climates. Sometimes it can be really nasty, particularly when there are lots of freeze/thaw cycles and everything gets slushy or icy. Even without snow, it also just gets really cold and uncomfortable, and people don’t want to deal with biking in that.

   Of course, having better infrastructure helps with some of these issues, but it’s not a silver bullet. Every time someone talks on Reddit about biking not being a 100% solution for their city due to winter conditions, some wise guy will post an article about Oulu, Finland – a very cold and snowy place which has great cycle infrastructure and lots of people who bike all year long. In return I like to post the stat that shows that even there, bike mode share plummets by more than 60% in the winter.