[hpaavola]

11 months ago I bought myself an ebike and since then that's pretty much the only way I commute. It's 12.5km from home to office, so 25km per day, about 75% of the time (25% remotely). Year round, in Helsinki Finland. So snow, freezing temps many months per year. And rain. I have two kids; one at daycare, one goes to school. Every day I either take younger to daycare of pick her up. Yesterday trip meter crossed 4000km, pretty much only from commuting.

My 12.5km commute takes 33 minutes when there isn't snow on the ground. During winter it takes few minutes longer.

Weather is not an issue. I wear normal office clothes, so typically jeans and shirt. If it's raining, I wear gore-tex jacket and pants on top of office clothes. If it's raining heavily, I put gore-tex mittens and shoe covers. Those hard-shell clothes are always in my pannier bag, because you never know when the forecast is wrong. Also when it's cold, the same shell pants and jacket goes on top of office clothes. If it's really cold, I wear fleece jacket or merino wool hoodie underneath the gore-tex jacket. When temps drop below -10C, I put some long johns underneath jeans and also wear ski goggles.

I'm never wet when arriving no matter how hard it rains. I'm not sweaty, so no need for shower. The only downside is that during the first 6 months, I lost 6kg, so had to buy new clothes.

These are the clothes I wear on top of my office clothes:

  * https://rab.equipment/ca/meridian-jacket
  * https://www.cube.eu/fi-en/cube-blackline-rain-pants/12215
  * https://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en_CA/product/waterproof-overmitts/
  * https://www.vaude.com/en-INT/Men/Accessories/Gaiters/310/Bike-Gaiter-Short?number=012790100360

and all those are year round in my rear pannier https://www.ortlieb.com/en_us/twin-city-urban+F8102 if I'm not wearing those. Rear pannier also carries my laptop and other work related equipment, mostly mobile phones needed for development/testing.

Bike commuting is fun, relaxing, healthy and fast enough for trips roughly under 15km. Weather does not matter. If you live in part of the world where it snows, bike path maintenance might be the dealbreaker. Also, if there isn't a viable bike route at all (pretty typical in many parts of the U.S.), then surely bike commuting is hard.

EDIT: Oh, almost forgot, merino wool buff during winter months is really nice.

[Gareth321]

I love my ebike too, and I have a similar commute and routine with the kids. That said, in summer time in Denmark, I get sweaty. So I need to wear cooler gear and I often need a shower when I get to work. It definitely adds time to the commute so it's not all roses.

[weberer]

Do you have some special winter tires or something? I also live in Helsinki, and would never bike in the winter since every path is packed ice and a thin layer of gravel. I slip enough just walking.

[hpaavola]

I use Routa from Suomi Tyres. Those are studded winter tyres. I guess Schwalbe Marathon Winter Plus is a popular choice in the category.

[cesnja]

You can buy winter tires with spikes.

[user_named]

How come you lost weight from riding an ebike?

[hpaavola]

Because in Europe ebikes are bikes with assistive motor, so you need to pedal and the motor just assists. So there is no throttle. And pedaling, even when it is easy, is an activity which consumes calories.

[alistairSH]

Another clarification... many of the higher-end e-bikes act as a power multiplier. If you put 100W into the pedals, you get 200W at the wheels (roughly). To go ~20mph, you're putting in ~15mph worth of effort. For my wife and I, that means she can keep up with me with a similar perceived exertion, which is really nice.

Some of the less expensive e-bikes just have a dumb switch on the pedal to meet legal requirements. You can barely pedal at all and the motor will accelerate to 20mph (or faster). And some have a throttle that bypasses the pedals completely (typically not allowed on bike trails/lanes, though hard to enforce).

[pjmlp]

Not really, in Germany there are also ebikes where you don't need to pedal.

[hpaavola]

Directive 2002/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...) states:

"cycles with pedal assistance which are equipped with an auxiliary electric motor having a maximum continuous rated power of 0,25 kW, of which the output is progressively reduced and finally cut off as the vehicle reaches a speed of 25 km/h, or sooner, if the cyclist stops pedalling"

So, vehicles which do not require user to pedal, are not electric bicycles. Those are something else. Yes, it is legal to drive such vehicles, but those are not ebikes. Typically those vehicles require you to have an insurance, possibly type approval and maybe even drivers license, depending how fast they go and how powerful the motor is.

[pjmlp]

What EU says and what each member state decides upon isn't alwayys the same thing.

So regardless how you feel like calling them, in Germany they are still sold as ebikes in name, even if conditions to drive them aren't the same.

In fact, the ebikes that require use of pedal are referred to as pedalec over here.

Additionally, Europe !== EU.

[hpaavola]

The very same limitations mentioned in the directive are in effect also in Germany. Bicycles with assistive motors up to 0.25 (nominal) kW and max assistive speed of 25km/h are effectively bicycles from law point of view. If the motor has more power and/or the max assistive speed is >25<45km/h, it's speed pedelec, not an electric bicycle. If the motor works without the rider pedaling at all, then it's a moped. The only difference here is that electric bicycles are in Germany called pedelec when pretty much rest of the world calls them ebikes.