Comments on: Overcomplicating Winter Cycling: Why It’s Bad

By: Roger Geller

Roger Geller — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 04:09:15 +0000

My favorite winter cycling gear? Warm wool clothing–whatever I’m normally wearing that day–and a $40 cycling poncho. It’s my favorite rain gear because it allows me to wear my normal jacket and I never have to put on rain pants!

By: JohnR

JohnR — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 23:42:07 +0000

Took off this morning for what will probably be my final century ride of 2016, Starting temp, -8°C. Cold enough to freeze my water bottles. By early afternoon the temp was a comfortable 5°C. My outfit: The same clothes I wore two days before when I shoveled snow from our latest storm. Plus my helmet.

By: c byron

c byron — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 20:30:31 +0000

check out Frost Bike by Tom Babin

By: MarkB

MarkB — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 17:42:04 +0000

I don’t think I’ve put on any of the miniscule selection of cycling gear that I still own on a couple years. I have a few routines for winter riding:

1. Attach fenders, F&R.
2. Switch to more aggressive tires for ‘those mornings’. Get the studded ones out and close at hand.
3. When the day’s highs drop below 50F, I get out the athletic tights that fit under my work clothes (my work area in winter averages 60F all day long). Below 40F, medium winter coat and heavier gloves (good for all temps below this). Below 30F, full layered headwear; I think about the insulated coveralls, wind conditions make that firm decision. Below 20F, the coveralls go ON, no question.

Up to three inches of snow get the studded tires; until the roads are plowed, that’s my limit. (One weekend last January, we got a FOOT of snow in one weekend — everything shut down for a day, but the roads were plowed the next morning. Except MY street…..)

By: Todd

Todd — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 18:55:50 +0000

Good article for flat relatively temperate locations. Where I live we get REAL winter – prolonged periods of -25C with periods of -30C to -40C. Winter cycling gear is not an optional extra. Special gloves, face and neck protection, thin insulating layers, thermal socks… all required to stave off frostbite. This isn’t vanity or the fetishization of cycling we’re talking about. It’s survival.

By: Pen

Pen — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 13:35:25 +0000

Good points. So many articles are about expensive gear and bike fashion. I thought this article, “How Low-Income Commuters View Cycling” was a good start into the kind of thing you’re talking about: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/07/how-low-income-commuters-view-cycling/374390/

By: Donna

Donna — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 13:15:17 +0000

A common theme I’ve noticed in winter cycling photos is that they don’t involve HILLS. I live in a town with steep hills that become extremely dangerous, either up or down, the minute there’s black ice or snow. It is not a healthy lifestyle move to slide under a truck or crash and break a leg. When the going gets icy, I WALK.

By: J Samson

J Samson — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 12:50:52 +0000

All that angry ranting and not a point to be found in this comment. Go for a bike ride, it can be calming and help ease the burdens that lead you to this incomprehensible anger.

By: David Kehoe

David Kehoe — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 10:54:26 +0000

Dress as you would normally if you had to go outside without an umbrella. That’s it. The rest are optional enhancements.

By: B Hamon

B Hamon — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 09:58:12 +0000

Sorry, but so much of what I find in Momentum magazine’s pages anymore feels like a sort of reverse snobbery: We’re going to make cycling unhip and thereby reinvent the idea of hipness. Cycling clothes will become snarkily ironic — designer riding jeans with reflective stripes when you turn up one pantleg? Those plaid shirts now have reflective pipng in the weave. And that helmet with the fabric cover? Too chic. And expensive.
It seems you’re trying to sell us on the idea of being a “real” urban cyclist by not looking like a “cyclist” — and by spending a ton of money on your advertisers in the process.
I worry that by making cycling ironically “un-hip” (and thereby more “hip”), you are more sharply drawing the lines between those who ride in a “cool” way (because they can afford to live in cities and neighborhoods where it’s safe and chic to ride) and those who ride because they cannot drive (i.e., too poor, DUI, etc.)
We do not all live in chic, expensive, clean cities with largely homogenous populations. I would love for Momentum to be among the vanguard in helping to change cycling culture for those who still cycling as the default of the drunk or poor and begin to really speak to and about underserved populations who could benefit from riding every day. The fashionista approach I too often find here has left a bad taste in my mouth.