4 ms·

>Summers get really hot even in cold parts of the country here in the US. That's a really good point. Most Midwestern states can get down to -30F (-35C) in win

>Summers get really hot even in cold parts of the country here in the US. That's a really good point. Most Midwestern states can get down to -30F (-35C) in winter and above 90F (32C) in the summer. Whenever I hear people say "winter doesn't stop the Dutch from biking", I always think of the climate in Amsterdam. The record low for the city is still above 0F. The average low is still above freezing, even in the dead of winter. The average low for my Midwestern city is close to -10F in January. The average high in summer is 10F warmer. We have some really extreme temperatures here, you can't discount the effect it has on modes of transportation without built-in climate control.

exDM69 11y ago
My mom puts on her winter tyres and drives her bike to work through the winter, in Finland. She's almost 60. A few of my coworkers do as well. It doesn't quite get to -35c, but -20 isn't uncommon and it's below freezing for two to three months. I'm not quite as tough, I ride to work the 9 months when there's no ice on the roads. I might try winter cycling but O don't have the equipment yet (mostly clothes but tyres etc too).
ocschwar 11y ago
As a bike commuter who rides as far down as 10F (-10C), I can say the cold itself really is the problem. The problem is that for too many routes, either the traffic is so crazy that if you wipe out on black ice the cars will run you over, (i.e. many, many main streets around Boston) or there is no traffic and you won't be seen (e.g. the Minuteman Trail, where a fucking coy-dog wanted to eat me when I met some black ice.) But on a typical not-quite-main street around Boston, winter biking is easy. There's enough traffic to make sure you will be seen, and it's slow enough you won't be killed.