[gilrim]

Not true. Lots of people bike in Oslo during the winter. While the numbers are lower in winter, saying that very few do is plainly wrong. Cargo bikes as well as trailers for kids are popular among families with children, see them all over the place. The city bike system are testing winter bikes and so far it been a success. The changes that are being implement take time, but overall the last few years the city have made great strides.

[eisa01]

Eyeballing some monthly graphs on [1] it seems to be 5-15% of peak traffic, I would call that few. Also, the city bikes don't operate during winter, which I can completely understand

[1] http://www.eco-public.com/ParcPublic/?id=3936#

[dbdjfjrjvebd]

Virtually no one bikes here in the winter.

[anyfoo]

As I said, definitely a lot of bikes in Munich in winter, but temperatures also rarely drop below -10°C or so (although there were some extremely exceptional winters in the last few years where it happened). Maybe that's different in Oslo.

[dbdjfjrjvebd]

Temperatures here are rarely under -5 but rarely above 0. The key is that they hover just below zero and the ice stays on the ground.

Ice is very different to snow to cycle on.

[anyfoo]

Does the city not put road grit onto the bike paths in Oslo? They certainly do in Munich.

[magicalhippo]

Road grid does little when there's several cm of snow on top of the ice. It's a very slippery combination.

During winter the sidewalks rarely get the snow removed. So unless there's dedicated bike lanes, which there are still rather few of, you'd have to bike in the middle of the road. Which, due to the topography, would mostly mean holding up the traffic big time.

Here are some news articles from last winter which contains some illustrative pictures: https://www.aftenposten.no/norge/i/m60VB0/Mer-sno-i-vente-pa... https://www.aftenposten.no/osloby/i/ka3kLj/Oslo-vinteren-har...

Of course it's not always that bad, but it's usually not a whole lot better either for most of the winter.

[anyfoo]

Yes, the difference seems to be that Munich has lots of bike paths.

[dbdjfjrjvebd]

They are not many bike paths. For example there are non on my commute.

[anyfoo]

Ah, that's the major difference then, I guess.