Assess your winter commute this year
 

Now that winter is behind us, for the most part, I am curious how your winter of commuting went. Any challenges that confounded you? Any successes you want share?

For me, this being my first winter of commuting I had a ton of momentum coming off the Christmas holidays, riding 2-3 days a week, until February hit. The weather made it very difficult and unappealing for me to ride. The extreme cold each morning and the snow was the big challenge. Even on mornings when it was marginally okay to ride and would I have ridden had I still had momentum I chose not to ride. That for me was the biggest challenge. I had zero rides for the month.

March has been kinder, at least the latter part of it. But even as I rode for the first time in six weeks a broken spoke on my commuter set me back a week until I could fix it. Fortunately the warmer weather and vanishing snow makes it much easier to get out in the morning, and I am starting build some more momentum.

The biggest challenge for me lately has been that nasty NW wind gusting 40-50km/h on my way home. Curse it!

I got on my bike and rode some when it was cold out.

good. winter in England is a joke compared to New England, Sweden, Denmark and Germany.

My riding time is about 20 hrs ahead of last year at this time. We had a mild winter.

I changed the handle bar setup and parked my Studded tire bike in the early winter, it was un needed, this year.

A lot less snow and cold than last year so much better. Cities and counties did a great job keeping all the side paths clear (I don't ride on any roads once it's snowed). The only times I wasn't able to ride instead of drive was a few days when it was below about 20f and windy. Warm car those days. Next year should be even better, I hear it sometimes gets down in to the 50's f here on cold winter nights :-)

I bought two items that made my winter commute better. One was a soft shell with gore windstopper. It was a real trooper as an outer layer that got me through some very frigid days. The other was I finally found some gloves that worked. They were some oversized black diamond mountaineering mittens with an insulating and a waterproof layer. With a liner glove, they were perfect for winter riding.

Like you, my winter was going great until February hit. I rode my most miles ever for a January, nearly 800, and was on pace to do so in mid-February. Then we had a series of winter storms that made it difficult to ride at all during the last two weeks of the month. I got back on track in March, topping 800 miles for the month yesterday with another day of riding to go.

I had to ride in a lot of marginal weather this winter to keep my mileage up. I don't do snow or ice, but rode on a lot of days when it was raining, foggy and very windy. I am really going to appreciate the return of warmer and hopefully drier weather. It has started getting warmer here, interspersed with cold, wet and windy days.

Mild winter here in the PNW. I road about 75%. And only had one winter day that created a need to take public transportation. Even though it was cold and got into the twenties I still road and upgraded my cycling gear so that I could have a comfortably uneventful rides.
The homeless problem became more apparent this year too. Open fires on the trails and the liter was really bad. The underpasses became a hazard in the mornings due to the guests sacked out under them with tarps and shopping carts. This summer may prove to worsen those attributes. Chop shops have sprung up and the trails and bicycle thefts have taken a jump and those are the ones that are reported. They are now going after thin tired bikes too which obviously are more expensive. We need police on the trails even if it means that I have to take the streets to go faster. The thefts have to stop.
V

Did Anyone received a Medal for riding this winter? I am still waiting for mine. I did commuted most of the winter except for a week on Feb that I got throat infection. It was my first winter commuting, I found out that studded tires are great. the only thing I didn't like was wearing winter goggles, they fog half way of the trip and not having eye protection on below zero temps not fun at all. Layers of wool, insulated boots and thick gloves are good. It was a good learning experience so I think I will be better prepared next winter.

Compared to the last few years...

This is Sacramento, of course. It doesn't get really cold, usually there are one or two weeks with freeze warnings, and we have fair weather 300+ days a year. That said, I see very few other commuters between savings time.

2012-13
I biked an awful lot. Basically if the road was dry, I was going. I biked in some cold, wearing my snowboard gear. Was proud of myself.

2013-14
Wife preggo. Biked seldom

2014-15
After the baby got past the colicky newborn phase, I have been making it once or twice a week. It barely ever got cold or rained this year. The CA snowpack is at 6% of average. Polar Vortex sounds preferable.

Biggest thing for me was getting a snowboard helmet goggles, and a fat bike. Pair that with a face mask/balaclava, and that made a huge difference. Still had all kinds of issues with keeping my hands warm with my Reynaud's syndrome giving me all sorts of problems. Rode in everything from 50° to 0 with wind chills at -25° and clear roads to an actual blizzard with a foot of snow on the ground and still falling. Will clear 700 miles for the year after todays ride in, which isn't bad considering the winter, the bone chilling cold, the snow, and the fact that it is still March and I have 9 more months to go.

As has been mentioned the winter out here was mild and great for riding. I got a set of studded tires and used them a few times when the weather was around freezing, though I never really needed them.

I was on a record breaking winter until the end of January. This February and March will be the first months I've not ridden in almost two years.

I want to congratulate all of the real winter warriors for this winter. It was the coldest winter I can recall in decades. In addition it was really snowy for a lot of people not used to that amount of snow. I grew up in the lake effect snow belt of Lake Ontario and I feel the pain of large dumps of snow and people who would ride on those narrow snow covered roads are a special breed of riders. My hat is off to all of you.

I imagine spring will be welcomed by many. Just watch out for those sandy corners for months to come.

I got off the bike when the temps hit -7C and I only used my IGH bike as soon as October hit..so from i'd say Jan-Feb no bike riding (hit the pool instead). March i was back on as soon as we got some -5C and up days.. two months out of 12..that's not really that bad! Fortunately Toronto and area has pretty good public transit, with trains to outlaying areas..it definitely is starting to feel more European here compared to many North American cities (that's a good thing:)

Winter was too windy & wet. Last year I had already cycled 1000 km more at the end of March. Almost any ride in 2015 was done out of necessity, not because I enjoyed to do it.

We barely had any winter, average day 2C above normal for the whole year. Bit of a chill late Nov, almost all the way down to normal.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6MnQPoK6w1...00/depart.tiff

I had a great winter of commuting, the best of the 4 years I've biked straight though the winter. Part of it was the lack of snow, we had a real snow-drought in the Twin Cities (especially compared to last two years that have been huge snow years). And part was getting a fatbike, making the snow we did get much easier to ride through. It also helps having biked year-over-year for a while to build experience and confidence.

Edit - I need to add temps this past winter were brutal; total of 21 rides at or below 0F and lowest temp was around -15F. (yes, I am bragging)

Here are my stats for Jan 1 to Mar 31 over the last few years:

2015 - 1,110 miles
2014 - 624 miles
2013 - 606 miles
2012 - 693 miles

These are total miles, but in the winter months almost all miles are commuting miles.

I rode less this winter but there were no surprises... my winter bikes did what they always do, I was warm and toasty, and had no crashes.

It went well for me, the only mistake I made was taking the snow tyres off too early. I ended up riding the trike for about a week because of that.

Biked maybe 6 days, total. So cold, so lazy, so out of shape now. The warmest day of the year so far for us is January 4th. Just getting back into biking/jogging and it hurts.

Didn't ride as much this year compared with the previous years.
Much colder this winter with twice the average snowfall.

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8583/...c9eede9696.jpg2015 FEB, NYC by 1nterceptor, on Flickr

Put your hat back on. You'll catch your death of cold.

Lake Ontario contributed its usual to our snowfall here this year. But those cold snaps (I noticed they stopped calling them polar vortices this year) gave us more, and a couple of the coastal storms reached this far inland too. As a result, we had record snowfall in February. There was one day where I figured I'd take the bus, but they called a snow day so my record is intact. Ordinarily I can get out for weekend rides once or twice in February, but not this year.

But here we are at the end of March. I took my studs off later than ever before. There's still plenty of snow around. Yesterday I tried a three-mile section of the MUP, and had to hop off and push the bike through snow for a hundred feet or so on three separate occasions. I bailed after a mile and went back to the streets.

On nice days I'm still on my 10-mile winter loop instead of the 16-mile long loop to work. So it's the second consecutive month that I've missed my mileage goals.

Let me tip my hat instead.

I grew up in Lowville just off the Tug Hill Plateau and my mom and sister now live just north of Syracuse. We didn't get as much snow as Tug Hill did but we would still get a lot. Being near that first real elevation increase east off the lake we would get a substantial amount of snow every year. I thought that much snow was normal and was surprised to find out it was abnormal for other wintery places. I love those snowy winters and would trade the over the dreary gray rainy mist here for them. But I might not trade the nice sunny days away.

I was pretty happy with my winter riding. We had about 2 weeks in which the roads were not clear, so i didn't ride then...otherwise about twice a week.

Basically I would look at the forecast and decide if it was too cold to ride. If it was anywhere in the upper 20's in the morning, I rode...the lowest I rode in was 25, with a face mask.

Often it would be about freezing or high 20's in the morning, then upper 30's or low 40's in the afternoon. I can handle that. What I can't handle is temperatures in the teens or single digits, or snow & ice covered roads, since I don't do any tire or bike switching. I own one bike, with 28mm tires...and ride it all year round.

My winter commute started on December 22, 2014, (first day of winter), with no snow on the ground until January 5th. The city claimed to not have the necessary funds to clear the roads forcing me to take the bus until January 12th, (car free). The cities found the funds, the plows came out and the bus was not used again for the rest of the winter season. From December 22nd, until March 20th, (first day of spring), my total winter commute was 1,235.6 kilometers. The lowest temperature I was exposed to on my ride was minus 33 degrees calculus on February 20th and the highest was plus 10 on December 24th. The winter bike worked without any mechanical mishaps. Studded tires were used from early January and came off on March 22. There is still ice to deal with early in the morning from snow melt the day before but I have not lost my vertical all winter. Without getting into details about the kit used I will just point out that with the very low temperatures in February, my commute without electric gloves would not be possible.
Overall, the winter of 2014 - 2015 has been one of the coldest that I can remember and I have been commuting by bicycle for quite sometime, (winter of 1992 - 1993).