Rocky Mountain Cycling Club
The Club for People Who Love to Ride!

Winter Miles  
By Mike Prendergast

One of the great advantages of having a change of season is the ability to switch sports as the weather changes. This works well on the weekend when daylight hours are available for skiing and other activities. But for me weekday exercise has been a problem in the winter. I really hate to workout inside. It seems so boring, or maybe it is just too easy to quit. Well, I have solved that problem by bicycle commuting in the off-season. With the exception of a handful of days in the winter nearly every day, the weather is good for riding here. There are some advantages to riding your bike to work from October until April.

•  You maintain a cycling base of miles with consistent riding. 

• You reduce the amount of driving miles you do each year.

So far this year I’ve racked up over 1,200 miles commuting between January to April and October to December.

There are some other advantages that I would not have thought of before riding through the winter last year.  The temperature is consistent on most days, and you can wear the same amount of clothing to stay comfortable. It seems much harder to predict what to wear in the fall and spring and also on weekends when the temperature can change a great amount during the ride. In winter, most of the ride is in the dark, and the temperature stays fairly steady. One odd thing is that in the morning the temperature often keeps dropping during the ride. This takes some adjustment with clothing. If you are use to under dressing and then heating up during your ride, you may find yourself a little cold. This is because we are use to the day getting warmer as we ride. So some of the warming up we experience on a weekend ride is from the sun, and some is from the heat of exercise. You only have your body heat in the dark, so dress with slightly more clothes.

I have seen lots of wildlife in the winter months along the bike trails in Denver and Aurora. The river is full of ducks and geese every morning, and I have seen fox, deer, coyotes, rabbits, large turtles, beaver, and raptors in and around the trail.

When poor weather does happen, one option is to just not ride. If you do choose to ride or a winter storm moves in during the day, be extra cautious. I’ll share with you the details of a couple of rides this year. In early November we had a mix of rain, snow, and cold nights. This didn’t really affect the paved roads very much.  But I was cautious in the morning, and I gave careful thought to the few wooden decked bridges that I would have to cross. As I made one right hand turn, the Platte River came into view and on a moon lit morning the view was postcard-like with geese and ducks swimming around and the warm (compared to the air) water was sending up a lot of mist into the air. Well, as I was taking all this in, somewhere deep in my brain it became apparent that the bike was losing traction. As I looked forward, and no longer at the scenic river, I realized that the bike and I were indeed about ¾ of the way across a very slippery wooden decked bridge. It is amazing to me how fast your mind can process information in a perceived crisis. The first thing I became aware of was that my headlight, mounted on the handle bar, was illuminating the side rail of the bridge and not the road in front.  I remember calmly thinking, “Oh, this is not going to work out very well”. But I was going slow, and, if traction would last another 400 milliseconds, that pole could brace the fall. I managed to reach out and grab the end of the bridge then spin around as the bike and I went down in what was anything but graceful. I stood up quickly, did a body check, looked around to see if anyone witnessed the spastic maneuver, and then rode off. After getting to work, I noticed only a minor scrap on my knee.  

If that wasn’t comical, the next week was. With my increased respect for wooden decks and cold weather, I was riding in one week later and stopped to check the conditions on the bridge. As I went to pull my foot out, the cleat was jammed in the pedal. Being on an incline up to the bridge with no way to turnaround, boom, down I went. Turns out the scrap on my knee from that one was larger than the first fall. Both of these falls were minor and could have been avoided. Hopefully these two mishaps will serve as all the reminder we need to pay attention and have a safe and enjoyable winter riding season. 

The final reason for me to ride in to work is that there is something quite unique about using a bicycle for utility versus recreation or sport. It really gives the ride a sense of purpose.

If you want to start riding to work and would like some help route finding or have questions about winter commuting, please contact me at mwprendergast@raytheon.com.

Also if you have comments on this article or suggestions for future articles, please drop me a note at the link above.

Below are some website links related to commuting and winter riding.

Ride Arrangers Bike to Work Resource for the Denver Area

Colorado Department of Transportation Bike to Work  

If you think it is too cold here to ride in the winter, check out ICE BIKE.

General commuting topics and questions from Bicycle Source. 

Bicycle and clothing selection based on feedback from rec.bicycles community

Four part series on winter training from cyclingnews.com