Commuting - This crappy weather makes me wonder...

If we would ever be able to live the dream of no cars. Sure, I still bike in it, but I ride in the ruts that cars have made on the road or I ride downtown where the roads will surely have melted. How would we get through winter without cars to pave the way? Wait for the plows? wait, those are cars too!!

I find the fresh powder was easy to ride in compared to the ruts. I fell down on some ice today... if everyone rode bikes instead of cars it would have been packed powder and I wouldn't have fallen. That being said... if we had no cars maybe we would be more likely to just take a snow day and go play instead of driving on ice and snow running into each other. We need more snow days and cars have taken them all away!

If you didn't have to worry about the cars, you could easily XC Ski in the roads...

-D

That reminds me... I know there are SkiBikes which are used for downhill travel and as far as I can tell are propelled by gravity but are there SkiBikes that are self-propelled like a bike? Has anyone rigged this up? It would be sweet.

I'd imagine a 4" - 6" wide snowmobile tread on back would be fun as hell.

Here's my plan.

http://www.horswillcycles.co.uk/acatalog/06-Pugsley-L.jpg
http://www.letsbuyit.com/images/LBI_images/I/28_sumo_suit_centre_500_93429.jpg

I can tell you that Calgary's winter roads would be much nicer to ride on if the cars weren't messing up the snow - I *loathe* that 'chocolate mousse' froth that cars make out of nice hardpack snow when it warms up - like riding in deep sand.