4 ms·

>> 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

>> 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.

barbazoo 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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.
rkangel 4y ago
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.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
alkjsdlkjasd 4y ago
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.
timeon 4y ago
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.
mjhay 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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.
Jochim 4y ago
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.
yourusername 4y ago
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 4y ago
  Je bent niet van suiker...
  - yourusername 4y ago
    Different meaning. More like "this sucks but you'll live".
acomjean 4y ago
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.
CalRobert 4y ago
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 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFkI3eglT1M
- sandworm101 4y ago
  >> 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.
  - el_nahual 4y ago
    Right. On a bike.
  - CalRobert 4y ago
    I don't understand how that relates to what I said?
- _aavaa_ 4y ago
  > 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.
  - avianlyric 4y ago
    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 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19640000612
bertil 4y ago
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.
ChrisKingWebDev 4y ago
Luckily there is already a video about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU 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.

barbazoo 4y ago

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 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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.

rkangel 4y ago

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.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

alkjsdlkjasd 4y ago

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.

timeon 4y ago

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.

mjhay 4y ago

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 4y ago
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.

Jochim 4y ago

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.

yourusername 4y ago

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 4y ago
Je bent niet van suiker...
- yourusername 4y ago
  Different meaning. More like "this sucks but you'll live".

acomjean 4y ago

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.

CalRobert 4y ago

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 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFkI3eglT1M

sandworm101 4y ago
>> 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.
- el_nahual 4y ago
  Right. On a bike.
- CalRobert 4y ago
  I don't understand how that relates to what I said?
_aavaa_ 4y ago
> 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.
- avianlyric 4y ago
  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 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19640000612

bertil 4y ago

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.

ChrisKingWebDev 4y ago

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