[alkjsdlkjasd]

> - weather might make the ride unpleasant;

As the Dutch like to say: there is no such thing as bad cycling weather, only bad cycling clothes.

I would strongly recommond a pair of water/wind proof trousers to go over your regular trousers, if you don't already have some. This has lead to a much more pleasant riding experience, especially in winter. They aren't very practical on a regular bike as they make you uncomfortably hot, but on an e-bike, it's much less of a worry.

[sandworm101]

>> As the Dutch like to say: there is no such thing as bad cycling weather, only bad cycling clothes.

Easy to say in a country famously flat, small, and with a relatively narrow weather window. I welcome any Dutch person to attempt a 15+km commute during a rocky mountain winter. I know of driveways in US/Canada with more vertical than any Dutch commute.

[CalRobert]

The trick is to build your towns and cities such that 15km is longer than most people would need to commute by bike, except perhaps as part of a bike->transit mixed-mode commute.

There are places with wintry weather that are good for biking! Oulu comes to mind

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-64354089

And as explored in this video, if the weather is too bad to bike safely in, it's probably too bad to drive safely in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFkI3eglT1M

[_aavaa_]

> if the weather is too bad to bike safely in, it's probably too bad to drive safely in.

I am sceptical of this assertion. For starters, if you have poor traction in a car you can always slow down, and the risk you face is sliding. In a bike, you need to have a minimum speed to actually bike, otherwise you can't stay upright. And your failure case is no longer sliding, but it's toppling over.

To say nothing of what happens if you throw wind into the mix.

[CalRobert]

"the risk you face is sliding"

Yes, including sliding over my child who is riding her bike to school, and killing her.

"your failure case is no longer sliding, but it's toppling over."

In which case the primary injury will be to your dignity.

[ClumsyPilot]

> In which case the primary injury will be to your dignity.

I just came flying off my bike two months ago after hitting some nasty patch of ice.

Broken hand, a good dent in my helmet, many bruises. If it wasn't for the helmet, I might have been taken away in an ambulance.

I've been cycling regularly for 12 years, so this isn't some noob error.

[CalRobert]

I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you heal well. I was referencing the point about going so slow you can't stay upright.

[avianlyric]

You can calculate the approximate speed a vehicle will start aquaplaning at based the vehicles tire pressure (V = 10.35*sqrt(psi) ) [1]. A car tire is usually inflated to around 30-35 psi, which give an aquaplaning speed of about 61mph.

A road bike tire is inflated to 80-120psi which give an aquaplaning speed of about 92mph.

A hybrid tire is inflated to 40-70psi, which gives an aquaplaning speed of about 65mph.

Bikes aren't know for traveling above 60mph, so wet roads don't pose much of a problem for bikes. Their tire pressure is so high compared to their normal speeds, that an unassisted human would really struggle to make a bike aquaplane. Additionally bikes can easily be ridden stably at walking speed. Unless you're riding on ice, going slower simply doesn't pose a problem.

As a result slipping on bike, because you can't cycle slow enough, just isn't a concern. In the only situations where it might be a problem, simply walking would be challenging, and driving would be idiotic.

[1] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19640000612

[myrmidon]

While interesting, this is almost completely irrelevant to bikes: The problem is not primarily water but wet ice or fresh snow.

Wet ice is especially dangerous because it can be pretty much invisible and you can transition directly from normal road surface to essentialy ZERO steering ability (and immediate crash if you initiate a turn or anything). There is pretty much no avoiding occasional crashes from this, the only way is to leave the bike at home when conditions are wet and close to freezing.

[avianlyric]

Ok, fine. But the argument above it that somehow these issues affect bikes, but not cars. Last I checked black-ice is just as much of a problem for cars.

[pastage]

I cycle in areas with ice and snow have done so all my life, all I do is lower my speed and my saddle. That means when there is ice I can always use my feets. This is more stable than walking, in wintertime I will stop and help pedestrians over vast swaths of ice.

I have managed to skid out once and that was with studded tires.

[scott_w]

I’ve fallen off my bike in ice. I’ve also skidded in a car on ice.

While the fall on the bike hurt me more, I can easily see how much more dangerous the situation in my car was. Blind luck saved me (and the car in front) that day.

[sandworm101]

>> it's probably too bad to drive safely in.

Ya, well one still has to get to work. "Safe driving" is slow but unless the roads are actually closed then most of us still have to get to work.

[CalRobert]

I don't understand how that relates to what I said?

[el_nahual]

Right. On a bike.

[bertil]

The worst weather when riding a bike is the wind (trust me: I live in the Arctic circle, we have snow or black ice on the road half the year and it’s routinely -25ºC; bikes handle both fine). The Netherlands has more wind than anywhere on land. It can be literally impossible to bike against the wind without the local training when it’s strong enough. If they can do that, I doubt a mountain pass would scare them.

And it rains, a lot. Which is fine if it’s vertical and you have a rain coat, but Dutch people made windmills, the Netherlands and horizontal rain. No coat can protect you from that.

The weather band is indeed narrow, but half of that band is terrible.

[acomjean]

I did a fair amount of winter biking in Boston. Good clothes really help. For me wool socks really help.

You do tend to warm up when riding a bike (pedal assist bikes might take longer). For me the issue is fingers, but with good gloves and a less than 45 minutes ride for me it was be ok. Ice and wind are issues too. But taking it slow and my glasses help a bit. The snow when plowed makes the roads narrower which can be an issue.

I always wondered why there were so many outdoor stores in the City.

[alkjsdlkjasd]

Completely agree for a push bike, but with an e-bike it's a different ball game.

Also in the US the max ebike power is 850W! More than enough to carry you up the steepest hills.

[Jochim]

That famed flatness brings along with it less famed strong winds.

Having cycled on some of those windy days, it was more challenging than most of the hilly cities I've lived in.

[mjhay]

Minneapolis is one of the top US cities for cycling mode share. You can bike in snow+ice with proper studded tires. With a fat bike, you'll do better than any car or truck in deep snow.

[MengerSponge]

It's implied, but to be clear: ebikes make it comfortable to ride with 4+ inch tires for absurd distances. An ebike with studded fat tires will make you feel like Legolas in LoTR.

[ChrisKingWebDev]

Luckily there is already a video about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

The quick takeaways are that there are cities in Finland that are colder than any Canadian city where 50% of the kids rides bikes to school. Also, a test project in Montreal gave a bike path a dedicated snow removal budget and ridership was up 30% in one year.

[timeon]

I'm not from Netherlands. What I have learned biking in snow blizzard is that it is good to have gloves and glasses. Everything else is just getting used to things.

[rkangel]

I have a close friend who lives in Edinburgh (Scotland) who has an electric cargo bike. Edinburgh is full of very steep roads, lots of them cobbles rather than tarmac. It's also cold and wet in the winter (although nowhere near as snowy as the rockies).

The electric cargo bike works well there - the hills make electric an absolute necessity, but once you've done that it works very well.

[yourusername]

It would be easy to say but that's not a common Dutch saying at all. It's a bastardised version of a Swedish/Norwegian saying.

[yurishimo]

Je bent niet van suiker...

[yourusername]

Different meaning. More like "this sucks but you'll live".

[barbazoo]

How many people live in the Rockies though? And how many live in relatively flat cities. You're not wrong I just think that this is akin to saying EVs aren't practical in the US because of Alaskan winters.

[sandworm101]

How many? Me. Much of my family. The place i used to work. The rockies, and coastal mountains, cover a huge swath of north america.

[barbazoo]

On a grand scale, sure, but even those places aren't necessarily super hilly. There's a reason towns and cities exist mostly on relatively flat terrain.

[Jwarder]

I would add boots that are high enough that there is no gap between the rain pants and the shoe. An old pair of "hiking" boots did the job for me. Riding through a puddle and getting your socks even mildly wet feels terrible.

[iso1631]

> As the Dutch like to say: there is no such thing as bad cycling weather, only bad cycling clothes.

The Dutch also like to drive, with 588 cars per 1000 people, higher than Denmark, Ireland, Sweden etc, and more miles per person than France, Spain, Italy, Poland, and 14% higher than the EU average

[bertil]

Not sure where your stats are from, but they probably include Dutch people driving abroad: they can easily take the train and bike anywhere in their own country, so I suspect most of their driving is to go on holiday in Europe. They are famous for being a small country with surprisingly large number of caravans near every beach in Europe.

[CalRobert]

That makes sense, the excellent infrastructure in the Netherlands makes it a very pleasant place to drive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k

[dzikimarian]

> there is no such thing as bad cycling weather

Wet snow being blown into the face? Compared to 20°C inside a car, commuting between two underground garages? That's going to be a hard to sell.

In the summer bike is fun, but from November, where I live it's just masochism.

[scythe]

>As the Dutch like to say: there is no such thing as bad cycling weather, only bad cycling clothes.

What kind of cycling clothes will mitigate a 40 C / 70% humidity afternoon in Memphis?

[maigret]

Trees for example. City highways make everything hotter.

[zip1234]

Memphis is full of underutilized 4 lane roads--remove 2 lanes and add a bike path + trees. The difficulty is that unless there is a bike network, it will get limited utilization. Need to build out a way to get places and people will use it.

[selimthegrim]

New Orleans is trying this and facing a lot of pushback.

[el_nahual]

Trees and an ebike.

[meindnoch]

How often does it snow in the Netherlands?

[Xylakant]

Meet Oulu, the winter cycling capital of the world. https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2021/01/22/meet-the-bike-... https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/what-on-earth-winter-biking-...

[NoboruWataya]

The fact that this is newsworthy kind of reinforces the point that cycling in extreme weather is not a particularly easy or convenient thing to do.

[Xylakant]

It’s easy enough that children can do it. Cycling on hard-packed snow is not particularly hard, less so than sand, I’d say comparable to gravel. Ice is a problem.

Convenience is relative. Sure, cycling in winter requires a good pair of mittens, and a warm hat, but all in all, it seems that a lot of people prefer it in Oulu over driving.

And the thing here is that it’s not the weather that’s stopping people from cycling. It’s shitty maintenance of the cycling network. Slush and ice, being forced into the same space as cars.

And that’s the newsworthy part - how does Oulu manage to maintain a cycling network in winter where most other cities fail. The answers include things such as priorities, dedication, investment. Oulu dedicates resources to the problem. Most towns don’t because “no one cycles in winter” - which then becomes a self-reinforcing prophecy.

[walrus]

It's fine as long as bike paths are physically separated from cars and are maintained to the same standard as roads. My college had a network of pedestrian/bike paths that they plowed in the winter, and I and many others had no problem biking year-round.

[nicehill]

Fascinating

How do Europeans keep ice off bike lanes? Salt?

[jkaljundi]

Tractors and snowplows. Salt kills the bicycles and salty slush is much worse to drive in. Hard packed snow is actually the best to ride on.

Interestingly Oulu bike roads clearing contract states the company doing the snowplowing can do inspections only on bicycles, not cars :)

[nicehill]

Maybe hard packed snow is a strategy for only flat cities

Seattle infamously tried the hard packed snow strategy about a decade ago, and it turned it into a dangerous (hilly) ice rink

[avianlyric]

There's a difference between riding on hard pack with a bike, and driving a car over it. I have no idea why you think an experiment with hard-pack snow on automotive roads is in anyway indicative of what works on cycle lanes.

[dagurp]

In Reykjavik they used sand at first because pedestrians prefer that but that is pretty dangerous for cycling so they use salt on designated cycling paths and sand everywhere else.

[xorcist]

It depends.

Salt only works until ten below zero. After that it only makes things worse.

When it works the result can be magical if combined with sweeping. Trashes the drivetrain real bad though.

There's a nice big picture how Oulu does it, halfway down the article.

[pastage]

It depends.. salt works down to -18C on cycle paths as long as you maintain it snow free and do not have big puddles of water. Brushing the snow away down to the asphalt is my preferred surface condition for cycling.

[Xylakant]

This video is a great explainer https://youtu.be/Uhx-26GfCBU

[badpun]

Amazingly, there is a city almost as dominated by cyclists in Finland (don't remember how it's called atm). The city is plowing and de-icing all the bike paths on regular basis. They're also well-lit, as people's commutes during winter months are often in the dark.

[bertil]

You are thinking of Oulu.

It’s not just Oulu, though: any city with students in the North has a lot of bikes, Umeå in Sweden has 40k students almost all on bikes; Vaasa (opposite Umeå, in Finland) also has a lot of bikes. Uppsala, Stockholm, Malmö, Göteborg, Eppo, all have a lot of bikes—and just as many in winter and summer.

[joromero]

Another interesting fact is that at least some of the cycle lane markings are projected rather than painted because otherwise they would be covered by the snow.

[docdeek]

Google says snowing on 20-30 days a year in Amsterdam: https://thingstodoinamsterdam.com/blog/snow-winter-amsterdam...

[Denvercoder9]

Not that often anymore (most winters there's at most one or two weeks with snow cover), but when it does, in many municipalities cycling paths get priority for snow removal.

[paganel]

The Dutch have passable weather for most of the year, of course that it’s easy for them to say that.

[andrewshadura]

Have you ever been to the Netherlands? I can tell you haven't. It rains a lot, winds are strong.