Winter Bicycling

Tom Butler: 0:04

This is the Cycling Over 60 Podcast, season 2, episode 21, winter bicycling, and I'm your host, tom Butler. If you are a new listener, welcome. This is where I share my journey to use cycling to mediate some health issues that I accumulated over years of doing the typical toxic mix of sundary lifestyle and poor food choices. So now I am on track to reverse conditions that are my biggest risk for an early death and I am also just exploring what I see as a very interesting world of the bicycle. This season of the podcast, I'm trying to do something I never thought I would do. I plan to ride about 400 miles across the state of Washington. I am getting more than a little pushback from my wife, who thinks that I'm pursuing too difficult of a next step. She would prefer that I dial it down a bit and just focus on managing my insulin resistance over the next 12 months. But I think having the goal of a ride across Washington is exactly what I need to push me to get on the bike and put in the miles that I need to burn some fat, specifically liver fat that I think is linked to insulin resistance. I am in the final two weeks of wearing a continuous glucose monitor. It has been a huge help having this monitoring. I have learned really valuable lessons about how to eat and how to exercise. I'm going to miss the monitoring, but I do feel I have a good plan to move forward in a beneficial way. If the CGM was a reasonable price, I would definitely be doing it longer. I don't have the doctor's order for it, so I'm paying out of pocket. I will be looking for a way to do more continuous glucose monitoring in the future, but the truth is I wish I could do continuous insulin monitoring instead. That would be more valuable for me at this point.

Tom Butler: 1:52

Recently, when I had the bike fitting for my Specialized Rebay, one of the recommendations was that I swap out the saddle that came with the bike for a wider one. I was surprised by that recommendation. I don't see myself as larger than the typical person, so I figured the standard bike saddle would be good for me. The bike came with a 143 millimeter Specialized Power Comp model saddle. The bike fitter named Eric Mowen suggested that the 155 millimeter would fit me better. I was pretty happy with the 143 millimeter and I actually felt it was a bit of a risk to put out $140 for a different saddle. I see Eric as a truly top-notch bike fitter, so I was pretty sure I could trust his recommendation. I got the 155 and I love it. I don't think I've ever felt a saddle fit me so well. On the package it said that it was Level 2 Padding. I don't know really what Level 2 Padding means and I don't know if that is for the 155 millimeter or all the power comp saddles, but it seems like a perfect padding for me. I still need to go over 50 miles on it and see how a few hours feel, but so far it's fantastic.

Tom Butler: 3:02

Eric Mowen adjusted a few things that increase the angle of my knee so that I am extending my leg a little further. This has resulted in what feels like a lot more power from each pedal stroke. It might just be my imagination, but it sure feels like I am faster because of it. That extension also means I need to keep trying to be consistent with my stretching. I don't know why this is so hard for me, but if I don't get more flexible I might experience more problems with the new position.

Tom Butler: 3:30

Since they closed down my regular bike path, I now have a new four-mile section in the middle of a ride. To use a measure for my goal to get faster, I was able to shave off a minute from the segment this week. That meant that I averaged 17.7 miles per hour. Looking at the Strava data, I can see that in my age group, 55 to 64, the top 10 times are all above 22 miles per hour. So right now my goal is to hit 20 miles per hour on that segment. That is a long way to go, but it is a good goal for me at this time.

Tom Butler: 4:10

It is the time of year when, to put time on the bike, I have to be willing to deal with some rain and somewhat chilly temperatures. So I wanted to bring someone on who has thought a bit about the topic. I was able to get Tom Babbin to join me for a conversation about winter biking and, as you will hear, he brings years of focus on the topic to the podcast. Here is our conversation. It's always awesome when I can find the perfect guest for a topic, and that is the case today. Thank you, tom Babbin, for taking the time to join me.

Tom Babin: 4:38

Oh, thanks for inviting me. I'm happy to be here.

Tom Butler: 4:40

Now you are a conveyor of ideas. I would call you a writer because you are an author and a journalist, but you also create compelling video content, so it goes beyond writing. You also seem to be an expert at one-handed writing, by the way, as far as what I've observed. How do you describe what you?

Tom Babin: 4:57

do. Well, I have learned how to one-hand hand write because I'm holding a selfie stick. I'm hopefully not my legacy now. I still think of myself as a writer. My background was in writing. I have written a book called Frostbike about winter cycling. The writing is the basis of all that I do. But I would say, on a bigger level, what I do is I share my story on a bike. So I came to cycling as a bike commuter years ago and was looking for resources and just started sharing on a blog, a written blog. It grew from there these days, but most of my creative effort into a YouTube channel called Shifter, which is. Someone once said to me you make videos like a writer. I'm not sure that was what they meant, that as a compliment, but that's sort of the basis of all that I do. That's a long answer to I would just say I feel like I'm not an expert in anything. I'm just sharing my personal journey as I learn how to navigate the world on a bike.

Tom Butler: 5:53

Well, I don't know that. I would have thought that your videos are the videos of a writer or done like a writer, but I sure enjoy your videos on Shifter, so I think you're doing a great job with that, thank you. Can you share a memory, an early, significant memory, of biking?

Tom Babin: 6:12

Yeah, I mean I remember first commuting. I mean I rode a bike as a kid, like everybody else did, but I didn't sort of think of it as a transportation option until I had young kids. I had no time to do anything, I wasn't exercising much, I wasn't getting out to have much fun Kids are fun, but it takes a lot of your time and I just thought one day hey, maybe if I ride a bike to work, I'll use that useless commute time sitting in my minivan and put it to good use by getting some exercise and maybe having some fun. And I remember that first ride where I was just like why haven't I been doing this all along? And so that was sort of like.

Tom Babin: 6:51

What sticks out of my mind is my conversion into a commuter transportation cyclist, whatever you want to call it. So that's one moment. I also have this other vivid memory of winter cycling, which is a big part of what I do these days and what I talk about a lot, because I'm in Canada. Winter is an inescapable part of life here and I would love bike commuting for a couple of years, and then I hated stopping in the fall when it got cold, and so I just thought I'd try to stretch my season out and I was just like pushing a little bit longer each day.

Tom Babin: 7:18

And then I do remember one time staring out of my office window as the snow was coming down and I hadn't made any accommodation for on my bike, I just had my slick road tires, my road bike at that time, and so I thought, should I call and get it right home? I'm like, nah, I'm just going to go for it. And it mostly went fine. But I did have this moment where I slipped and fell on my bike on the pavement just as like this giant SUV full of like four teenage girls drove by and like they slowed down and said are you okay? It was sort of mortifying in a way that teenage girls could make you feel like a loser. So that was another moment where I realized, hey, maybe I should put some thought into this winter cycling and figure it out. So that was sort of like the genesis of both cycling and winter cycling for me.

Tom Butler: 8:01

Now you mentioned shifter, which is your YouTube channel, and I would recommend people go check that out because there's some awesome content there and I think the way that you explain things is really great. It has been for me. Can you give some background on the genesis of the channel and what you're striving to provide?

Tom Babin: 8:19

Yeah, I mean I started the YouTube channel after writing a blog for a number of years and I was just looking for a sort of creative outlet. You know, I hadn't as a writer, I hadn't thought about video much and I thought, well, let me try this. And in my experience, if you're trying a new creative thing, it seems to work well. If you're putting it out there in public and you know, the risk of embarrassment does seem to like raise your level a little bit. So, you know, I did a, I did a Lyndacom course on video editing and you stumbled through the first several videos. I'm still a pretty basic video editor but I feel like I've got to the point where now at least I can articulate the story I'm trying to share. So sort of the technical side of it.

Tom Babin: 8:56

And what I found on YouTube is like a really a real international audience, more so than there was reading my blog and a lot of people in cities like mine that were struggling, you know, didn't have a lot of bike infrastructure, like cycling was not easy, like transportation cycling was not easy, and so I just tried to adapt what I had learned over the years as a commuter cyclist to the channel and what I had evolved to at that point was sort of I started, as you know, like a sporty sort of athletic cyclist where I would like gear up and maybe not like to my way to work, but I definitely wear athletic clothing and had a really fast bike.

Tom Babin: 9:28

And then over the years I sort of like realized that it's possible to slow down a little bit and like it doesn't have to be that complicated, it doesn't have to be that expensive. You know, I sort of actually downgraded my bike a little bit over the years and I stopped. I started dressing for work and not for the journey to work on my bike, and so that sort of simple message is something that impacted my life in a positive way. It just made things so much easier than having to overthink it sometimes. So that was kind of the message I took to the YouTube channel was like this doesn't have to be complicated. I think in North America we do tend to overcomplicate these things sometimes, but I just wanted to like get that message of simplicity out there and it does seem to resonate among certain people. So that seems to be where I found my niche.

Tom Butler: 10:07

So the reason I reached out to you for this discussion is because you wrote, ross Byte, the Joy, pain and Numbness of Winter Cycling. You mentioned that you kind of wanted to extend your commuting into winter months and that that was a journey for you to kind of figure that out. What were you thinking as far as what Frostbite would provide?

Tom Babin: 10:30

Well, the real impetus for writing it was, I mean, looking for resources to help me figure out how to ride in winter and not being able to find any at that time, and so I thought well, no one's done this, Maybe I can do it. So that sort of gave some structure to my research or my wanderings around winter cycling, and so I just wanted to share what I had learned, because I sort of learned a lot the hard way. There's a lot of trial and error. I tried a lot of different things before I came upon it and there was a.

Tom Babin: 10:58

I think there still is a feeling among winter cyclists out there that or at least those who don't understand winter cycling that you have to be some kind of masochist to want to ride in the wintertime, that you need all this gear and it's expensive and you have to like. It's like a real, like athletic pursuit and you have to really like. You're real, like strong and macho to get through it. And that just wasn't my experience, especially as I started looking at other places in other cities around the world. It doesn't have to be that hard and, as I, the more I learned, the easier I got, the more I enjoyed it, and that was sort of the message that I wanted to share.

Tom Butler: 11:33

I like that. Now I would like to frame the conversation in a certain way. Maybe I'm curious about your perspective on this. I'm riding a bike because it's helping me to reverse some lifestyle diseases. I see the bike as something that's going to be, you know, for the rest of my life, something that helps me stay healthy, and so for me, I need to ride in the wintertime, otherwise I lose like 25% of the time you know of using the bike that way. So I am wondering do you feel that winter cycling is an important factor to get people to embrace the bike as a form of transportation, that biking in the winter keeps them on the bike and allows them to see it as a more complete form of transportation?

Tom Babin: 12:23

Yeah, that's one of the great things about bikes is how they can do so much for us. You know, staying fit and healthy and all of that was a huge part of my original motivation and as I get older I find it's a huge part of me maintaining my mental health. I just feel like I'm a better person if I'm riding, or my family's quick to tell me like maybe you should go for a bike ride today, so they rely on them to help me out there too. I would actually reverse, like almost think of the question in a different way. Like I think in a North American context, we so often think of cycling only as an athletic pursuit or like an activity for fitness or health or recreation, and that's great. I do that all the time also and I think, along with that, we just like we just stopped thinking about it as a transportation option in the wintertime because, you know, as a sport it just doesn't exist that much in the wintertime. It sort of gets shut down. So I often sort of think like if we were to think about cycling as a transportation option year round, it might actually get more people into cycling rather than cycling getting more people into winter riding. You know what I mean.

Tom Babin: 13:24

I think the thing that's held a lot of people back from winter cycling is they don't feel safe and I think that comes down to like the gear hasn't always been there. Winter cycling gear is amazing now compared to when I started, you know, years and years ago. You know, studded tire in the snow will change your life. Plus, there's lots of great athletic sort of sport cycling gear that for the wintertime that keeps you warm. All that stuff is way better now than it used to be. And there's some cities that are starting to build infrastructure. I think that's the real safety fear in winter is like the infrastructure isn't safe, especially in winter. And if you're riding in the summertime with cars, I think if you're a strong confidence cyclist, you can do it Like I do it all the time. But if you're one of those ones who like doesn't feel safe even in the summertime and you really need a protected bike lane to get you where you're going, you're absolutely not going to do it in the wintertime because that extra risk of slipping and falling. So I think that as the cities evolve and we're seeing more and more cities build good quality bike lanes that are keeping people safe and more and more of them are maintaining them through the winter to make it safe. I think you're going to see more people on riding.

Tom Babin: 14:21

So I do think as a transportation option, absolutely it's viable. It can happen in all kinds of places. It currently happens in all kinds of snowy winter places and it does all those fitness benefits, the physical and mental health you get from it in the summertime absolutely apply in the winter. With the added bonus I found, if we're talking about outlook is that it made me fall in love with winter again. I think so many of us hate winter. We just avoid it. We go from our heated home tour, heated car tour, heated office and we never even experienced it. But I've learned to love winter again. I get outside and some of my best bike rides are on those winter days when the snow is softly falling and it's quiet and it feels great, the muffled sounds. I just love that now too. So winter is different everywhere, but I do think it does expand a lot of options in lots of different ways for fitness, for health, for transportation, if we stop thinking of it as a seasonal thing.

Tom Butler: 15:09

I live in the Seattle area, and so we don't really experience rough winter conditions here. I'm wondering if you could talk about what your winter biking is like where you live.

Tom Babin: 15:20

Yeah, I actually think you guys might have it harder than me. So I live in Calgary, which is on the other side of the Rockies from Seattle. It gets cold here. We have a long cold winter. We get snow not as much snow as in the eastern part of the continent, but we get snow and I've actually found it quite easy to deal with the cold because your body is just like this great internal furnace. You probably find this riding in the Shillier winter months as well.

Tom Babin: 15:43

The problem is not staying warm, it's staying cool enough, I find in the winter time I always advise people to layer up because you're going to strip those layers off. And I stole this line from a cross-country skier once who says cross-country skiers face the same problem because there's so much aerobic exercise that they just get so hot. He used to say be bold, start cold, and so I always wear one layer less than I think I will need. So that's some of the accommodation. With the snow and ice, I think a studded tire has made a huge difference. Just even one on the front has made a huge difference for me. Lots of people are using fat bikes in the snow and I think that's amazing for them. We don't get a lot of snow. We get a lot of freeze melt cycles here, so there's lots of ice and so a fat bike is not required. I find it a bit too inefficient for the commute that I have, but it works for a lot of people. So that sort of works here in the snowy conditions, and I think a lot of that probably applies in more rainier spots.

Tom Babin: 16:33

Like you guys on the coast, I think winter rain gear has helped a lot. It's much better now than it used to be If you want to wear your regular clothes to work when it gets colder. A couple of years ago I discovered the magic of cycling-specific ponchos, which everyone sort of laughs at, but they actually are really good and they fasten in the right places to keep you dry. Fenders on your bike make a huge difference. Maybe some overshoes or something on your boots. Even with fenders, I do find my feet get wet sometimes in those rainy conditions, so it's definitely possible.

Tom Babin: 17:04

I think winter is sort of different everywhere. Some places have heavier snow, some have lots of cold, but I've been to lots of places and everyone seems to make it work. Whether it's rain or snow or sleet or anything, I don't think there's any problem. I actually think the bigger challenges are the places that are really hot down in the southern US, I think in the summertime that's a real problem barrier to cycling. That is even harder to overcome, I think, than the cold and rain of winter.

Tom Butler: 17:29

I think that's a really good point. I did Seattle to Portland bike ride last year, which is a pretty famous ride up here, and it was hot and the other day we were out and it was I don't know, it wasn't raining, but it was cold and we had stopped and we were sweaty and we stopped long enough that we got back on the bike and we were wet and cold and so it took a while to get up to the point where we were generating heat again. And so someone asked would you prefer this kind of difficulty or would you prefer the heat? And definitely I prefer the challenge of being a little bit cold rather than being too hot.

Tom Babin: 18:11

There's more options, I think, too, for keeping yourself warm than for cooling. There's only so many layers you can take off.

Tom Butler: 18:17

Yeah, In Frost Bike you talk about your journey to find a great winter bike, which I thought, again, was an awesome. On packing it was written in 2015,. So a little bit different of options and of equipment that you would find today, but I still thought it felt it was really a really great explanation of kind of the factors that you were looking at. You talk about this thing that happened in 1999 at the Inner Bike Trade Show in Las Vegas. You mentioned a fat bike and that was a point that helped bring about the fat bike. So I'm wondering if you talk a bit about that and then kind of what you've learned over the years. You talk about the fat bike isn't really the best option for you, but maybe you talk a little bit about the fat bike as far as winter riding is concerned.

Tom Babin: 19:10

Yeah, that was just one of those great little stories that I unearthed in researching that book about winter cycling, that trade show in Las Vegas, the Interbike Trade Show. The way the story was told to me was there was a vendor there selling fat tires that were built for sand. I think it was out of Mexico who was offering tours through some of the desert areas, through some of the sand. So we had this thought that he would make these really fat tires and then he had built a couple of frames to accommodate these fat tires. There was a couple of people from Alaska who were there at the time too and saw these fat tires and thought, hey, I know where I could use those things, and so bringing them back up to Alaska. It took a bit of time. We take for granted now how easy it is to just go buy a fat bike, but when frames didn't accommodate these huge tires, that was a problem. It was just the frames. Everything had to align on the back and the transmission and the suspension had to work, and so it took a couple of years, I think, to get things going.

Tom Babin: 20:07

And I actually have a friend here in Calgary who has this great story the first time he encountered a fat bike. He's an outdoor endurance cyclist and he was doing the Interbike, which happened years ago, which was an extended I think it was a 500 mile winterback bike ride in Alaska, similar to the idea to ride the sled dog race. And so he remembers just seeing these really fat tracks in the snow for days and days and thinking what is going on here, and the bike was always ahead of him and he didn't see till the end what was going on here and what had emerged was someone had adapted these fat bikes, these fat tires, for snow, and so it took a long time for those to take off. Of course, the original owners or creators of this did not enjoy a huge windfall from this. Other people saw these, I'd say about 10 years ago, bikes manufacturers started taking fat biking seriously and now they're everywhere.

Tom Babin: 21:02

I was worried that they would not last because, as you know probably, cycling is very trendy and there's always something new that everyone seems to jump on. If it's gravel bikes or fat bikes, it is always something new to try. But fat bikes are here to stay. They've gotten so much better. In the old days, those tires were really big and heavy. There wasn't a lot of them didn't have suspension, but they exist now in lots of different formats. The prices have come down a bit. They're still more expensive than I would like to see, but there's still a great option for lots of people. But again, it depends on your winter. I think if you're in a snowy place where they pack trails down or pack road paths down, they can be an amazing option. Electric fat bikes are amazing too, because the extra drag of those fat tires can wear on you, but the electric motor can sort of pick up the extra slack on that one. So I really love how they work there. But also, like I said, it depends on where you're riding.

Tom Babin: 21:56

I think there's a bit of trial and error for a long time. When people ask me, people say I don't have any money but I want a winter bike. Here's my answer Get an old mountain bike from the 90s, Make it a single speed, Put some fenders on it and just go. That's probably all that you really need. Winter can be hard on bikes, especially in cities, because there's so much salt sometimes placed on roads, and so I rusted out a couple of beloved bikes in the past which broke my heart. So I say get a cheap bike. Make it single speed, because it's all going to gum up all of your trailers and gears anyway, and just go for it. You're going to replace a chain once a year. You're going to have to clean your bike a lot, but that's the best route forward for those people in winter, I think, if they're worried about spending a lot of money.

Tom Butler: 22:38

I love that because it's so simple and so practical, and I think that sometimes and I think this kind of comes out in the book, too, and in other things that you talk about on Shifter sometimes we try to make things more complicated to make them work, and you're presenting something that is simplifying it to make it work, and I think that's awesome.

Tom Babin: 22:59

Yeah, I also still have my heart broken from that bike that I destroyed and I'd hate for somebody else to experience that. So if you can pick up a cheap bike for $100 and make some modifications to it, you're good to go.

Tom Butler: 23:12

Kind of along with this. In Frostbike, you make the statement that you realize that what's holding most of us back from winter cycling may not, in fact, be the bike. What were you trying to convey with that statement, and how do you feel about it today?

Tom Babin: 23:27

Yeah, I think that's still the case, and I think I was thinking of two things when I wrote that. One was it's not the bike holding back people from winter cycling. It's often the city. People don't feel safe because there are safe, protected places for them to ride. And we see in northern cities, where there is good bike infrastructure that's well maintained in the winter, people use it, people ride. So I think that that's a key part.

Tom Babin: 23:48

But I also think what's holding people back is our attitudes towards winter. I think it pains me as a Canadian to say this, because we think of ourselves as winter people, but a lot of us are pretty bad at winter. We've forgotten how to exist in it because we've gotten so good at avoiding it. So I think our attitude towards winter is a huge part of this. And I was like this at the beginning too.

Tom Babin: 24:09

I was scared, I was worried about the cold, I was worried about falling, I didn't really know how to deal with winter, and so going through this, I think, taught me that I don't have to be afraid of it, it's manageable, I can do it. I don't have to ride every day or I don't want to. I can make these sort of accommodations to make it happen. I still look out on really cold days and think, oh my God, am I going to die if I go do this? But then as soon as I gear up and get out there, it's fine, and 10 minutes in I'm like, oh, what was I worried about? So I think the two things holding us back really are safe bike infrastructure and our attitudes towards winter.

Tom Butler: 24:45

There are so many great stories in the book. I mean, you're a great storyteller and I really appreciate that, and maybe it's because I'm biased and I like stories about cyclists. Maybe somebody wasn't a fan of biking, Maybe they wouldn't feel like the stories are so great. But I think the stories are great and one of those is this story of I think it's Colin Kerr, if I'm saying that first name correctly. And there's this moment where you describe when a magazine wrote about quote a bunch of kooks who didn't realize when to put their bikes away. But the truth of the bunch of kooks got revealed when, after a particularly heavy storm, people called the city to complain that the city wasn't clearing the bike paths. Can you talk a bit about what this story illustrates?

Tom Babin: 25:34

Yeah, I love the story. It's like a real turning point. Here in Calgary, where I live, these kooks for years had taken upon themselves to clear the pathways of snow in the winter time because they wanted to use them. There was a small group of them who got fed up waiting for the city to do it. The city wasn't clearing pathways at the time, they're only clearing roads because they didn't think anyone cared about recreation in the winter time. I guess they had rigged up these weird little plows they would drag behind their bikes and they would go up and down the pathway in the mornings when it was snowing. They were so good at it that people just started assuming that the city was doing it. When this huge snowstorm came and the snow was too heavy for these kooks to get up there and clear it because their equipment wasn't working, the city hall was flooded with all these phone calls from people saying why aren't you clearing the pathway?

Tom Babin: 26:23

It was a real turning point here in Calgary. It was, I think, a realization that these pathways, these routes, are essential to people. It's not just cyclists, it's people walking and not running. I think there's a realization like oh, I guess maybe we need to start thinking about winter. Like I said before, it's bizarre to me as a Canadian. Winter is such a huge part of our lives that we just go into hibernation mode and ignore it or pretend it doesn't happen.

Tom Babin: 26:48

I think that was a real turning point for the idea that, yes, people need to get outside. Yes, we're happier and healthier when we get outside in winter, whether it's walking or running or cycling. Yes, these are transportation routes. We have a great multi-use pathway network here. These routes are sometimes the quickest, most efficient ways of getting downtown. Why not use them in winter? Also, for me, it's like we invested in this network. Why not keep it going for the wintertime? It just seems like a good use of money just to let it sit idle for four months or three months whenever winter lasts. It seems like a waste of money to me.

Tom Butler: 27:22

There's this transition in the book where you start out saying I want to get the equipment that I need, but then you start asking a question about what is the infrastructure really that's needed? It seems like maybe no matter what equipment you have, if you don't have the support for people to get out safely, then you can't really expect people to be out there using their bike in the wintertime. You decide to travel to Finland and experience a safe city. The quote is someone says it's always a good time to ride a bike in this city. Can you talk about that experience and if the criteria you use to evaluate a winter bike city has changed over the years after that trip?

Tom Babin: 28:10

Yeah, I think that quote comes from my friend, pekka, who's a follower of my channel. He's a regular guest. He lives in this city called Aulu in Northern Finland. It's a university city about a little over 100,000 people. I visited there when I was researching my book because they were hosting what I didn't think was real. It was the first annual winter cycling congress or conference. I thought this exists, there's enough people in the world who are thinking about this. I went there and I arrived at midnight and Pekka was there with a bike to pick me up. I was shocked that we were going to ride our bikes from the airport at midnight. He was like that's probably when he said that it's always a good time to ride a bike, which sounds very Pekka. He's just very practical about the whole thing we rode.

Tom Babin: 28:52

There was a turning point for me also in the realization that in the potential of winter cycling, aulu has been built since the 70s. They had a planner in the 70s who just had a lot of foresight and realized that putting pathways in for cyclists and pedestrians, putting those in before the roads go in, giving priority to those, just makes more sense. They had been building it out since the 60s and the 70s. They have these really wide paths that are often shorter distances than the car drivers have to go, which only makes sense when you think about it. What was really shocking to me was the maintenance of them. This is a subarctic city. They get a lot of snow. They had developed this way of maintaining the infrastructure by, instead of plowing it down to the pavement, they would leave like an inch of snow and they would just scrape the top off, and they'd developed these ways of doing this where they just have a packed layer. I was very nervous riding on this packed layer, but I was amazed at how much traction it gave.

Tom Babin: 29:46

We rode through the city in the middle of the night on the snow. I couldn't believe how easy it was to get where we needed to go. Then, waking up in the morning when I stepped out of my hotel and I just saw streams of people on bikes not fat bikes, not studded tires, just regular, often those upright European style bikes with baskets. It was kids and moms with their kids, and older people and retirees going to get groceries and everybody was riding and nobody was wearing special gear and nobody was riding a special bike. I think this was a real change for me in my thinking about winter cycling.

Tom Babin: 30:19

That conference actually was the first time I saw that bike. Someone from Minnesota had come to the conference and brought his fat bike to show it off. It was the talk of the community. People were fascinated but also baffled. Why do you need this thing? It worked.

Tom Babin: 30:32

That made me realize that there's two components that make it easy in a city to ride. Bikes are good, safe infrastructure. These pathways were built for great use in the summertime. What works in the summer, if it's safe for protectant, will work in the winter. Then the maintenance is a big part of it too.

Tom Babin: 30:50

I think Alu has for people who care about things like blade depth on plows and corduroy finishes on plows. They're looked at as the innovators. Lots of places have lots to learn from Alu, but all there's sort of cities are different. Exactly what they do doesn't work. I think the real lesson from that is a good winter city responds to the conditions that exist there. They don't just go out and do the same thing every day.

Tom Babin: 31:19

In Alu, one of the requirements of the plow drivers is that they have to ride a bike on these things. They have to understand what it's like for a user. It's 24 hours. If it snows in the morning and they plow and it keeps snowing, they will come back again later in the day to keep it. Sometimes here we plow once in the morning and that's it, no matter how much snow comes, your commute in the morning might be great and then the way home it's a disaster. I think what I learned, and I think what's important part of it, is you need to respond to the conditions that exist in your city. I slowly see that getting out there, more cities are experimenting with these things. It's really nice to see. I don't think my thinking of that has changed. What I think has changed is that you can't just mimic what's happening in Alu all the time. You sort of have to take their approach of figuring it out for you, for your conditions.

Tom Butler: 32:03

I like that. It's a more comprehensive mindset. It sounds like what you're saying.

Tom Babin: 32:08

I think so, yeah, and also even just for North American cities, just to recognition that these are important routes for people to use and you need to take it seriously that people count on these to get around. I sometimes think North American cities look at this as like oh, the city's doing you a favor If they don't get to it, whatever, it's just a bonus anyway. No, I think of it like a bus. A bus is no good if you don't know if it's coming. If you're sitting at the bus stop you're not sure if the bus is going to come, then that's not a viable transportation option. It's like a pathway, like a bike route. If you're not sure if it's going to be maintained, then it's not a viable transportation route for you as well. So taking it seriously is the first step.

Tom Butler: 32:47

When you were in Finland, you noticed an elderly lady on a bike, and I see a lot of elderly riders, both men and women, but I think you were noticing something different. I see older riders who get out and get fit, but I think what the elderly woman that you had seen while you were struck with that is that I think you talked about. You're just as likely to see a rider out doing daily chores as riding to get fit there. I'm wondering if it has changed where you live that you now see older people simply relying on a bike for what you called the mundanity in Alu.

Tom Babin: 33:23

Yeah, absolutely. I mean things have changed a lot here in that time. I see a lot more people on outriding period, whether they're out for recreation or transportation or fitness. There's just more people outriding and I think that's a function of the fact that there's more safe places to ride in the city now too, so it's easier to get out, it's more fun, you don't have to worry about getting run over, so that just encourages more people to do it. I definitely see more older people outriding especially.

Tom Babin: 33:49

I think e-bikes has made a huge difference in that, both for recreation and for transportation. I just think it's a bit. It just takes the edge off a little bit. We're a river city so there's big river valleys that people need to go through and I think if you can ride your e-bike 95% of the time on flat terrain but you hit those river valleys and just having like a little bit of bonus just makes it a bit easier to get out. So I think I see that. I think it's getting a bit more normalized. Transportation cycling is getting a bit more normalized because it is getting easier. So I see more not just older people but kids with their families or moms with cargo bikes the good cargo bikes with the kids in the front bucket riding them to school. I see more of that.

Tom Babin: 34:27

One of the things I've noticed in traveling to cities around the world and nerding out on cycling in those cities is, it seems to me, as cycling gets more normalized, it gets more diverse also. So if it's hard to ride, what you tend to get is young men who are super confident and aggressive in their cycling. That's fine. Those guys can ride they always well. But as you get, as cycling gets more safe and more inclusive and easier and more practical, then you get more women, you get more older people, you get more different types of bikes and you get all kinds of people too.

Tom Babin: 34:58

So I just came back from a trip to Paris, and Paris has had some amazing bike transformations in the last five years. They've put in hundreds of kilometers and bike lanes and closed streets to cars. Riding along the Seine, which used to be a car street, on a bike on a Sunday afternoon was, like you know, an amazing bike experience too, and I was just struck by the same thing. So many different types of people riding all different types of bikes some sporty, some not. Some wearing helmets, some not wearing helmets, some with baskets, some with road bikes. So I think that diversity is sort of a key element of a good bike city.

Tom Butler: 35:30

I think it really is something you can notice when, if you're in a city that has made the investment put in the labor to make biking a really safe thing. I think what you're talking you know. The diversity does seem to be a marker, and there's a particular marker of people riding in everyday clothes out on bikes that are really comfortable bikes. It seems like you can almost rate a city by how comfortable people are dressed when they're riding.

Tom Babin: 36:00

Yeah, I think that's true. I think I just did a video where we did sort of informal surveys of a bunch of cities around the world and it did seem to me one of the trends we noticed is like the higher the number of cyclists, the fewer who are dressed for sport, and I just think like it's probably that people who dress for sports and activity are there anyway and are going to do it, and I think that's amazing. I mean, I do it all the time too, but as it gets easier it just opens it up to more people who want to ride in different ways. That's one of the great things about cycling is there's so many different ways of doing it. I think too. I think diversity is great and I think a healthy bike culture I hate using that phrase, I'm not sure bike culture is a thing. Sometimes I feel it's more like a function of the infrastructure rather than a culture of it. But there is some, there is part of it as culture. Definitely A healthy bike culture, I think, is a diverse bike culture.

Tom Butler: 36:43

Someone from North American city is just educated differently from these cities, like in Finland or other places in Europe like Copenhagen. When it comes to bikes, I found this to be illustrated in an interesting way by dooring. Can you explain that term and then also what happens in a city that is just always used to a lot of bikes being around?

Tom Babin: 37:05

Yeah, it's an interesting idea. Dooring has been one of the fears for me, as riding my bike around a lot and probably for you too is riding adjacent to a parked car and then having someone exit the parked car by opening the door right into your path, and you know it's very dangerous. I know people have been seriously injured by hitting an open door on a car. I think I first realized the difference here when I was speaking to a European one time probably somebody from the Netherlands when they were talking about infrastructure and I asked them like what about the risk of dooring? Because I think about this all the time and they didn't even know who it was. They had no clue what it being doored was, and that was because they just don't put cyclists in that position where they have to worry about that so often. You know a safe infrastructure to a Dutch person, a safe bike lane is separated from cars, there's a little barrier from away from motor vehicles, and so they just don't put people in the situation where that can happen. So part of it is education. Actually, there's this thing people used to call it the Dutch way of opening your car door where you like. Reach around with your right hand to open the door so that it forces you to look behind you so that you can see cyclists coming, and then you can open your door safely, rather than using your left hand and just throw it open without looking behind you. And for a while people were calling this like the Dutch way of opening the doorway. And I asked somebody a Dutch person, one time and they had never heard of this. So I don't think it's that Dutch. I think it was more like us applying this idea to it.

Tom Babin: 38:26

But I do think that part of his education. I do think in those great bike cities in the world you know Amsterdam and Copenhagen and Aulu and those sorts of things they definitely teach kids how to ride in different ways than we do. But I also think it's just a matter of safety. You sort of brought up in a culture where cycling is normalized. It's a transportation option. It's safe and easy to do.

Tom Babin: 38:48

You don't have to think that much about it. It's really easy to just sort of get out there and go. So I think that's part of it as well. We can do a better job educating kids here on even things like basic bike maintenance. I think one of the barriers to people riding bikes is like they don't trust themselves to fix something that goes wrong and they don't want to take it into the mechanic all the time. So I think, like teaching someone how to fix a flat tire or change a chain might be a great thing for kids, to get them into it as well. But it is part and parcel with just a better bike environment in general, I think.

Tom Butler: 39:19

There was this thing that you talked about that I really was attracted to, and that was about feeling a rhythm in Copenhagen, and I think what you were saying is that that rhythm was shaped by the use of bikes there and a little further in the book, you talk about Rom Emanuel, who, as mayor, envisioned a bicycle friendly Chicago. I'm wondering, from your experience, how far are we away from experiencing that rhythm that you talked about in a place like Copenhagen, in a North American city like Chicago, or basically any American city or North American city?

Tom Babin: 39:59

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I hadn't thought about this maybe since the book came out, but now that you're talking about it there is definitely a rhythm to a city like Copenhagen or Amsterdam and even coming from Paris that has implemented all this change in the last couple of years, I don't think the rhythm is quite there yet. I think they're getting there, but I think that rhythm they've done so much work so quickly, but there's still lots of connections that need to be made right, like bike lanes in some areas just don't connect that smoothly to others. So there isn't like a complete network that could facilitate a rhythm like that too. So it definitely takes some time. I'm sure Paris will get there and they're moving so quickly that it won't be long, but in North America it's definitely not coming.

Tom Babin: 40:39

I felt it most in Montreal. Montreal is 30 years ahead of any other North American city right now when it comes to bike lanes. I do think in some of the more dense neighborhoods in Montreal where they've had bike lanes for 20 years or 30 years in some cases, and now they've just every year they improve the system a little bit more, they add a bit more length to the networks, they make connections, they're building new ones, they're rebuilding streets to make them more pedestrian and bike friendly. You're starting to feel that I think you can see it and that rhythm also comes from like the life on the street, and Montreal is, you know, in the summertime. This year I think they've pedestrianized 10 streets this summertime, so there's just like a vibe they're feeling in the streets and the culture of cycling just fits really nicely into that. I'm seeing good things happening in Vancouver. New York, of course, has made big strides. I'm hoping to make it to Seattle in the next year because I'd like to see what's happening there as well.

Tom Babin: 41:34

The problem, I think what we're seeing in North America is that we don't see a lot of sustained growth. I think you get a city hall administration or a mayor who pushes it, we make some progress and then priorities change or government changes, and then we lose it and then it's sort of piecemeal, and so to get like to the point where Montreal is at, you need 25, 30 years of like a plan that is implemented consistently and it's built and it works and I think you can really see the results. It's not rocket science. I think it's easy. It can happen everywhere. We just need to prioritize it. So I see bits and pieces here and there, but I haven't seen a real comprehensive push forward like I have anywhere outside of, say, maybe Montreal or maybe less so in Vancouver.

Tom Butler: 42:14

When I picked up Ross Bike I really was thinking I'm going to read about the equipment, I'm going to read about the bikes, I'm going to read about footwear. I was really expecting like that kind of a resource. But I was really pleased that the book is this journey, you know, with stories along the way, and journey of, you know, maybe the focus on the bike isn't the biggest thing, maybe the focus on transportation planning is more of the thing and infrastructure is more of the thing, and that takes this very interesting turn in my mind, which you've already mentioned, and that it dives into the element of mindset. So I found that was, for me, an awesome surprise of this book and kind of where you went with it, in that it really kind of got deep into what keeps us from enjoying things.

Tom Butler: 43:07

So it seems to me that we are in such a high pursuit of comfort that we miss out on something like winter cycling. And I find this a bit similar to I've heard some talks about climate change where most likely require people to live with being warmer and we're used to air conditioning and we're used to being at a certain set point as far as temperatures go. We don't want to go, you know three degrees higher or three degrees lower, or we become less tolerant of feeling uncomfortable as far as temperature. I'm wondering if you could talk about, if that resonates with you and if you can talk a bit about this dynamic as far as it relates to winter cycling.

Tom Babin: 43:47

I mentioned earlier. I think one of the things that I really learned about that whole process was falling in love with winter again, and I think part of that for me was like a deeper connection to like the ebbs and flows of the season and of nature. I think I had grown accustomed to going to work with just a light jacket on, because I would go in my heated car and then I would never be outside, and so once I started riding my bike and I was forced outside, or forced myself outside anyway, yeah, I had to think a bit more about the weather, but I also found that I enjoyed that, like on the days that are just five degrees warmer, I was like it felt like summertime. You know, I like really enjoyed that. I still like short days in the winter time. For me now, when I commute in the morning, I get sunrise, and when I come home at night I get sunset, and those winter sunrises and sunsets are amazing. I annoy my family too when the light, the winter light, is out and I'm like I find pleasure in that, like it's just a different kind of light. Just things look different and I always point that out and my kids roll their eyes Like I'm somewhat a crazy person but like these are like the little things that I've, like the pleasure I think that you're mentioning that I've found in winter and I think that's really connected to the ebbs and flows of the season, the changing of the season. You know I love fall riding now because it's more comfortable temperature wise and you know, maybe that's you know, I can dress a bit differently. I don't think I would have appreciated that in the past.

Tom Babin: 45:06

So I do think like that's part of getting out, of getting myself out of the sort of comfortable status that I was in, maybe help me understand, sort of have a deeper connection to the nature. I also love it's my, it's connection to the city that cycling gives me. You know I notice things more often, like if I'm riding past the building, the center construction, it's sort of nice to see it go up and be completed. If there's changes in a. You know, if a tree is removed, I will notice. I will probably whip right by it on my car and I didn't think about it. Sometimes in the summertime, if there's an outdoor festival, it's nice, you can smell the food that's cooking. You know all the stuff that you sort of miss. That car is sort of deprives you of those sensory experiences. So it's I really like that part of it as well, so I think that kind of adaptation is really nice.

Tom Babin: 45:43

I also read a study recently about cyclists people who ride their bikes in cities, being more engaged citizens. I'm not sure I buy all this, but there was also like people studies out of Germany I think it was. People who ride bikes are more involved in volunteer organizations. They voted higher rates, they're more likely to get involved in politics, and the theory of the authors was that cycling connects you a bit more to your community. You just see more, you're more in it, like you're immersed in it, more than a car, which kind of cuts you off. So I'm not sure I'm all in on that one, but it's an interesting observation and I certainly see it with my connection to nature.

Tom Butler: 46:15

Well, I'm certainly all in on that concept. You know, I do think people that ride bikes are just better people, of course. Yeah, okay, one of those people We'll go with that yes.

Tom Butler: 46:26

You know, as you were talking, I thought about, I remember one time we were in Fairbanks, alaska, and it had warmed up to 32 degrees, which you know, in Fairbanks it can be 50 below zero, you know extended periods of time, and so you figure from 50 below to 32 degrees. That's really a significant change. And so there was someone out in a Hawaiian shirt with a barbecue. In my mind they're like going hey, you know, it's barbecue weather, now it's gotten up to 32 degrees. And I thought that was just such an awesome illustration of something you just briefly mentioned, which was adaptation. I'm betting that through the years you have adapted a lot to riding in the wintertime.

Tom Babin: 47:14

Yeah, I think so, adapted in my habits, but also I do think my. I don't know if there's any science behind this, but I do feel like my body adjusts each year to the different seasons, and so you know a temperature that would make me really cold in, you know, october by January feels like summertime, and so I'm taking my mittens off at that temperature too. I also think cities are adjusting better to winter now as well. There is this initiative that goes back 30, 40 years called the Winter Cities Initiative. That encourages city planners and private developers to think about winter and things like architecture. You know shadows and and icicle line. You know where's the icicle going to fall. There's another city in Alberta here called Edmonton that has a Winter Cities Committee, and their whole point is to make winter better for citizens, and so they organize festivals, they have community or organized snowball fights and outdoor patios that are heated.

Tom Babin: 48:09

You know, all these little things that we didn't think about for a long time are starting to get better because I think, like you know, climate change is absolutely changing winter. I think too, but I think maybe that's helping people appreciate, you know, some of the things that we took for granted before. There is like there's definitely a beauty in winter that you can miss if you're not looking for it. So hopefully you know I love winter. I'm also like a skier, so I don't want winter to go anywhere. I hope it's here forever. But I think, as it's changing, maybe people are starting to realize and appreciate it a bit more.

Tom Butler: 48:36

So, as I said, it was a few years ago that the book was published and you mentioned something here where you talked about go out and get a 1990s era mountain bike and, you know, make it a really practical, really simple machine, for we're going out in the snow, and I think that represents kind of a whole transition. And thinking about the bike and I'm wondering if there's anything else you can think about that. The process of riding frost bike, the research that you did, the riding, the thinking, the traveling, as you look back at that, what are some other things that you can think of that kind of transitions, your thinking not just about winter biking but biking in general?

Tom Babin: 49:22

Well, that's a good question. I think it's changed my thinking around urban life in general. I think you know, the longer I sort of talk about cycling in a city, the longer I realize it's not really about cycling, it's about the city, it's about city life, the way we choose to organize our lives in a city. I think I'm sorry to appreciate that there are different ways of living and that it's okay if somebody wants to live in the suburbs and drive their car, but not everybody wants to do that, and that there are different ways of living in a more dense environment that are healthy and functional, and it's okay for that as well. So I think when I started this, I thought mostly about the bike. You're probably right. It was more about like, how can I get through this? And honestly, the most common questions I get are about which kind of bike should I ride or how can I make this work with my bike.

Tom Babin: 50:08

But I think probably what I think about more now is the city and the community and how we can make life better for people in a way that cycling is just part of it. I just think, like I love urban cycling so much. I think it is good for me personally, but it's also great for the city. I just think it makes our streets better and our life more vibrant, and you meet your neighbors more and you wave to your friends as you are riding, and it also in an era of climate change, you know. I think it's a crucial part. We can't ignore it. I don't think it's the only solution to climate change, but it's a huge part that we've overlooked over the years, and so all of these things can sort of work together. They're a part of all kind of outgrowths of cycling, but really they're outgrowths of our lives in cities. Well, that was a great question and a rambling answer.

Tom Butler: 50:53

No, it was great.

Tom Babin: 50:56

I do think it has maybe changed my thinking in lots of ways.

Tom Butler: 51:00

What do you have coming up? Do you have anything that you can talk about that you're either for shifter or for riding? Do you have any projects that you have coming?

Tom Babin: 51:09

up. Well, I have lots of plans. I was looking at my notebook of ideas and it's overflowing. Some people are like aren't you tired of talking about that yet? No, I love it, I can't wait to do more of it.

Tom Babin: 51:17

So I was lucky enough to just get back from a trip to Europe, so I had a. I mentioned Paris earlier. I spent some time in Germany as well, and every time I go someplace new, it's eye-opening for me. I just published a video on my YouTube channel about I mentioned earlier too the global I called the shift or global bike culture index, where we examine the culture of cities, and this was user viewer contributions. They sort of gave me data on what they collected in their city and it just like blew my mind.

Tom Babin: 51:44

We got more than 100 cities, but to see the differences in all of these cities and how people are riding bikes in different ways, I just now I'm just like I need to go explore Some of the things I've always heard about Japan and the way that it's a got a great bike culture without much bike infrastructure, and that was it was reiterated here.

Tom Babin: 52:00

So now I'm like, oh, I need to.

Tom Babin: 52:01

I need to go to Tokyo and also I maybe realized I've been pretty Eurocentric in my thinking about this, thinking of those European bike cities as amazing places, but to see what's happening in Mexico city and in Manila and in DACA has really been amazing. So I think I'd love to sort of explore different approaches to getting more people on bikes, and we often overlook, you know, the biggest bike cities in the world, where the most people are riding are probably like in India and Bangladesh, right Like there's just. You know, that's something that I would love to explore as well. So there's that, and I've got a whole year full of YouTube videos planned, and as the channel has grown, my ambitions have grown too. So I'm hoping we can amp up the quality and I want to get a bit deeper on some of the bigger issues. So we've got, I've got lots of plans, most of them focused around that YouTube channel, because they're such a great community that's built up there and you know it's a great environment. I'm really happy to be part of it.

Tom Butler: 52:54

Well, that's fantastic and I look forward to seeing that content as it gets released. Tom Babin, I thank you so much for taking the time to do this. It was great. I'm so glad I discovered Frostbite, your book and the shifter YouTube. The shifter was actually the first place that I discovered you. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Tom Babin: 53:15

This was a lot of fun. Thanks, tom, I really appreciate it. I enjoyed it.

Tom Butler: 53:18

And I hope you have a lot of fun on your adventures, not just working, but also just enjoying biking for the fun of it. Take care and have a good holiday.

Tom Babin: 53:28

You too, thanks very much.

Tom Butler: 53:30

Bye now. Being in a rural setting, I don't use my bike the way someone getting around an urban environment does, and I can get a bit jealous of the dedicated bike lanes and public transportation that allows the bike to be a primary mode of transportation. Thinking about winter cycling, I can imagine the stillness of a winter night, with the snow slowly falling down, making tracks through fresh accumulation. It certainly is a different way to experience winter, but I also understand how winter riding in a city would be hard to do if I didn't feel like the routes would be safe.

Tom Butler: 54:09

I would love to hear your stories of riding in the snow. Have you experienced a new way of looking at winter because of biking, or have you found it just too much of a challenge to be out on a bike during snowy winter months? You can find my email and Instagram links in the show notes. Please share your experiences. Well, there is only a short time to meet those cycling goals for 2023. Whether it is outside braving the elements or indoors putting time on the trainer, I hope you're wrapping up the year with some great rides and remember age is just a gear change.