Here in Salt Lake City there are a number of people who commute year round. It really isn't bad as long as the snow is removed - which they do quite well here.

Unfortunately, my bike commute only happens occasionally now that I work in the 'burbs - which, at least here, is where all of the new office complexes are moving.

High altitude snow is also really weird. Back in Denver you just had to get used to snow disappearing and leaving behind dry concrete.

There's this weird thing that happens in northern climates where all the bikers and scooter riders magically disappear sometime around October and don't reappear until sometime in April. I can't figure out why this happens, we should really aim to understand that before we push bikes and scooters on half the human population. I don't think it's the car lobby that causes this disappearance.

In the Netherlands the fraction of cyclists that keep riding in Winter is much larger than in cities with similar climate. Cycling in winter is not that hard, it's not worse that going on foot. What's important is that snow is removed.

There are sooo many things that you need to do to make cycling in winter possible; snow must be cleared, you need special tires, you need extra warm weather gear, you need to wait for the blizzard to end, etc. etc.

Or I could just get in my car with a light jacket and blast the heat. Rain, shine, snow, blizzard, whatever. I'm good.

Except for the warm clothes the same is true for cars. Snow must be cleared, you need special tires, you shouldn't drive during a blizzard. It's just that you've normalized those things when it comes to cars.

When the snow is cleared you are generally fine with normal tires on bikes btw, because you can just go a little slower.

Also you don't need special tires. As the name implies, all-weather tires work just fine. And I can make it through quite a lot more snow in my car than on my bike (the converse is that it's a lot easier to unstick a bike than a car!). Also the risk of commuting in the winter is a lot greater for cyclists than motorists (i.e., if a car loses control and hits you).

I live in Minnesota which is a cold weather state. We get lots of snow and winters last a long time. I’m not from Minnesota but have lived here for 18 years. I have never changed tires on my car. I will never bike in the winter time. Too many chances to slip in winter while biking. Pockets of ice, areas that aren’t cleared well, etc.

Studded tires make riding on slippery roads a non issue. The risk is from drivers sliding into you.

Proper biking infrastructure would reduce this risk in all weather.

The same goes for driving (well, driving safely at least). You need winter tires, you need an ice scraper, probably a snow shovel and other gear. You probably also shouldn't be driving around in a blizzard, either.

Come to Copenhagen or Amsterdam. We bike in all kinds of weather, backed up by great public transport.

You definitely don't need winter tires; all-season tires work just fine. And an ice scraper (or even a shovel) isn't a burden for motorists. Also, winters in Copenhagen are probably quite a lot warmer than many places in the U.S. (the lowest average monthly temperature is barely below freezing!). Quite a different story from Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, or Des Moines.

Yeah, you actually need winter tires. All season tires are garbage.

I’m guessing you’re not accounting for wear. I can’t tell the difference between my all seasons and winter tires, but the performance gap between summer tires and all seasons (in winter conditions) is enormous.

Wear matters a ton. Winter tires are usually made of very soft rubber to maintain pliability below freezing. Driving them when it gets warm destroys them quickly.

I'm not sure if you meant that as a rebuttal or not, but I completely agree. :)

Depending on the weather, yes you do need winter tires. All-seasons are a compromise, and the only actually good ones wear out really quickly.

I've scrapers are not a burden to carry in a car, but they do cost money, and require physical effort to use.

You should visit Copenhagen in the winter, and enter a dimension of slush, the freezing/thawing cycles make it extremely unpredictable to ride or drive in. Actual steady freezing temperatures are so much easier to deal with.

It hasn’t stopped a lot of us up here in Minneapolis. Other than - possibly - a balaclava, I don’t dress significantly different for winter biking than I do for general winter weather. The effort warms me up quickly.

No one in Amsterdam has special tires on their cycles during winter and everyone here has a winter coat, it really is not a big deal.

Amsterdam the average winter temperature is like 3 degrees Celsius. Where I live it's -10, and it can easily dip into the -20's for weeks and the -30's for days.

There's also these things called "clothes" humans have been using to protect themselves from the elements for quite a while. Humans walked across Siberia with little more than animal skins. I think most can handle a 30 minute bike ride when it's a bit chilly.

It's often not the cold, but the riding surface. Ice, snow, and water really change the dynamics of riding a bike.

The same is true for cars, yet nobody uses that as a reason not to drive a car.

I’m always shocked how few people swap out for winter tires in appropriate climates.

Also distressing was the number of people convinced that all wheel drive made their car safer in the snow.

Isn't it safer, though?

I'm not very experienced with this stuff, but one of the issues is having sufficient traction to make it up hills, and all-wheel drive is superior at that. If you have to roll back down a hill and try again with a running start, that may be doable, but that makes things more chaotic and unpredictable on the roads (compared to making it up the first time). In an ideal world, other drivers would be attentive enough to handle it, but in reality not so much.

Also, more generally, because static friction is greater than dynamic friction, any time your tires lose grip, you have less control over your car at that moment. All-wheel drive means tires are less likely to lose grip when accelerating / applying thrust.

No, it’s more convenient. I personally would argue that AWD can make cars less safe because of the false confidence it provides.

The most important thing you can do with a car is brake and turn, as those affect safety the most.

All cars brake with all four wheels, drive type has absolutely no effect at all. All modern cars have enough braking power to slide on clean concrete, let alone snow and ice. The only thing you can do to improve braking distance is to change your tires.

Steering is only affected by drive type when you’ve got the hammer down, as you may be asking the front tires to propel and steer the car at once (this is partly why FWD cars often understeer). But in a snowy situation you won’t be driving flat out, so which wheels are driving will have little effect on steering, and zero effect if you’re coasting or braking.

What AWD is great at is getting you off the line in low traction scenarios, which is convenient. It also means that you can get an AWD car up to speeds that are unwise in the present conditions (remember that steering is two wheeled in almost all cars).

The only real advantage that AWD has is that AWD cars are typically heavier than their two wheel drive cousins, and weight absolutely confers safety in snow.

> No, it’s more convenient. I personally would argue that AWD can make cars less safe because of the false confidence it provides.

> The most important thing you can do with a car is brake and turn, as those affect safety the most.

Yep, I could notice that when I was leaving north of arctic circle. Each time my driving mates ended up in the ditch (failing to turn on a crossroad), it was with a 4WD. I tried to explain to them that 4WD does not help to brake and turn (especially when their 4WD land rover/cruiser is 50% to 100% heavier than their regular car), to no avail :-(

Luckily most of the landings happened in the snow banks and were relatively smooth, but the lesson was not learned :-( But hey! they finally get to use the 4WD to pull back out of the ditch :-)

I think we really have no argument with each other here because we're talking about two different things: car capabilities vs. overall picture including driver behavior. "AWD vehicles perform better in ice/snow" is a different statement from "you're safer in an AWD vehicle".

Sure. But in other geographies, what kind of clothes can possibly protect from 96-degree heat and 100% humidity?

Look at how Bedouin nomads dress.

Image-searches say their clothing appears to be long-sleeved, multilayered and often head-covering. I can't tell the weight or the fabric-type, but I'm pretty certain they're not minimum-weight synthetics.

That much insulation seems utterly counterproductive for hot-weather exertion, though it probably would at least protect from sunburn.

A shower at your destination

A shower after biking in shitty weather - while certainly helpful - does not address the characteristic sensation-of-imminent-death during biking in shitty weather.

Not all. I just put on my balaklava and some knobby tires. It's not that bad with the right clothes. I wouldn't walk around in Boston winter without my face masks either.

I'm genuinely curious: do you wear glasses? How do you keep them from getting fogged up/iced over when riding in the winter?

Contacts are essential. Even without my balaklava, my hat bothers my glasses, making them press into my ears.

Also, my Asian nose doesn't hold glasses very well. Once while biking in the summer (with sweat dripping) they fell off in traffic. I was basically blind. It was terrifying.

Thus, contacts.

Gotta get a face mask with vent holes for your nose/mouth. That lets the moist air escape away from your eyes, reducing fog.

> I'm genuinely curious: do you wear glasses? How do you keep them from getting fogged up/iced over when riding in the winter?

Don't waste your time. Pro-cyclists are the most biased and privileged people I've ever met. Just get on your bike, it's so easy! forgets that some people have bad knees. All you need is some goggles when it rains! forgets that people wear glasses. Just wait for the snow to be cleared! forgets that some cities don't clear snow. Just buy knobby tires! forgets that smaller people will struggle with the extra weight. Just wear a face mask! forgets that some cities ban face coverings and certain demographics get looked at strangely if they wear balaklavas

I laugh at the idea that cyclists are privileged people when your entire argument is "I want to sit in my $30k steel box, not have to prepare for changes in weather, not interact with other people, and not work". The idea that someone on a $400 bike who read a weather report and works to commute is "privileged" is ludicrous.

Don't forget the massive infrastructure investments required to support life built on the private car. Maintained roads and gasoline come at an enormous cost to society. The cost of everything is multiplied by driving-based distances.

Also, drivers aren’t even paying their way for roads. The percentage of roads paid for by gas taxes is at 50% and falling. Those of us who commute sans car are chipping in thousands of dollars per year to subsidize road commuters.

The privilege is around ability, not cost. No less than half of my coworkers are constantly complaining about how broken their bodies are, you expect these people to just hop on a bike and go?

Well, if they had done that earlier their bodies probably wouldn’t be so broken. Sitting still is bad for you.

I just find your hatred for cyclists utterly bizarre. Did a cyclist murder a family member and you need revenge, or what?

I absolutely do not hate cyclists, I am one myself. When I lived in the city, I commuted in to work on a bike. I have lived that life and know what it’s about.

What I disagree with is the idea that we can build a society around cycling. I was lucky to be able to live close enough to work and be abled enough to do the ride 5 days a week. And I was lucky that, on days with bad weather, I could work from home because of my job as a software developer.

As I started to look outside of my own life, I saw that not so many people were lucky. Actually, most people weren’t this lucky. How would I ride to work as a construction worker, with all my equipment and rotating job locations? How could I do this as a nurse, where I would be on my feet all day working odd hours? The more and more I considered all the ways people participate in society, the more I realized that the very narrow constraints of cycling just don’t work for most people.

So sure, build the cycling lanes and bike racks, I’m not asking you to rip those up. There are many people who can cycle and we should accommodate them. But that’s it - Just accommodate them. Don’t try to uproot the core structure of our way of life. You’ll want the roadways when you get old and injured can’t ride any more.

Oh, so you made up my position (rip up all the roads), and then got pissed about it. Got it.

This isn't really a fair statement to make. Sure some people will have struggles with using a bike all winter and it may not be possible for them, but it doesn't invalidate the ideas or arguments as a whole. To assume all people for the idea are just biased and privileged based on cherry picked negative situations is just not fair. If you can't cycle then you can't cycle. Just because a few can't do something doesnt mean that this idea as a whole is invalid.

The idea alone isn’t invalid in theory, but in practice. Add up all the people who can’t ride bikes for whatever reasons and you see that we’re exactly where we’re at now; some people ride, most don’t. You seem to think that it’s a small number of people who can’t ride, but I think it’s the opposite.

I don't understand this reasoning.

People use this same logic when others suggest eating healthy and exercising.

"And if someone works three jobs and has ten kids? Hmmmm? Then what?? Gotcha!"

Begins to reek of someone using the condition of others to rationalize why they themselves can't be bothered to do something. Not to mention the fact that you're more privileged in a car than on a bicycle.

Cycling really does attract the same nonsensical aggressive reactions as eating healthy and exercising.

Some people can't drive due to medical conditions or because they're too young or too old. Should we stop building roads?

Nope, but those people can be driven by someone else. How the hell do I drive my mother to the hospital on my bike?

“I might occasionally need to use a car, therefore I should use it all the time no matter the context” is a very weak argument.

"This thing has incredible utility and practicality, therefore I use it for most transportation because it allows for flexible planning - a necessity in an ever-changing world"

As opposed to a bike: "This thing has a very constrained set of operating parameters, therefore I use it occasionally when the situation fits best"

If it's an emergency you call an ambulance, if it's not an emergency you take a taxi.

How far northern are we talking? There are still a lot of bikers in NYC in my observation, and Amsterdam is pretty far north.

Amsterdam May be at a high latitude but it’s very mild.

I've commuted on bike in Montreal down to about -10C. No special clothing, no special tires.