Mazed
Typically, bicycling in winter is a little more complicated but manageable.
But after 5 feet of snow has fallen within a month here, this winter is nowhere near manageable. It’s pretty unpleasant to bicycle, I admit it. I’ve considered other options but all of them are even more unpleasant.
And just when getting around Boston was bad, it got worse as public transit started failing and streets became fully gridlocked making bicycling pretty much impossible.
So I turned to walking which suddenly became the fastest option. The problem is that cities only only plow for people in cars. There’s nothing like record snowfall to show the inequality. Walking in winter in a city is like navigating an impossible maze.
The preference densely populated cities such as Boston, New York and Chicago give to cars over pedestrians when snow piles up is wrong on so many levels. We, all of us, need to keep pushing until this nonsense changes.
I’ve been taking the T as I can’t justify a 2 hr walk each way to work. Have been staring longingly at my road bike sitting quietly on the balcony. Let’s hope for spring (once we’ve broken the snowfall record, of course)
Winter biking is FABULOUS. This is my first year biking all winter here in Anchorage, with the advent of 4.8″ studded Dillingers on a carbon fatbike. We didn’t get 5′ of snow, but if we had, those are the tires you want. They don’t plow my daily commute route as it is a multi-use trail. The times when we did get snow, someone always came by to pack it down before it got too deep. These fatbikes can go through about 4″ of unpacked snow before it becomes unmanageable. Otherwise, with the disk brakes, wide “lynx paw” footprint and studs, if you can keep your balance and have enough momentum, you can go through just about ANYTHING. 2′ high berms, icy curbs, sheet ice, black ice… Dillingers stop very well on black ice pavement. They conform to polished/irregular sheet ice on top of pavement. Fatbikes make winter biking FUN!