Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)
2,954,104
Published 2021-01-25
When talking about bicycle infrastructure in Canada, the number one excuse I hear is "winter." Many Canadians see the cold and snow as a fundamental barrier to year round cycling. But one city, Oulu in Finland, with winter weather worse than most Canadian cities, shows that winter cycling has nothing to do with the weather, and everything to do with safe cycling infrastructure.
Want to learn more about winter cycling? Every February, the Winter Cycling Federation holds a Winter Cycling Congress where experts and advocates get together and talk about best practices in cycling infrastructure and maintenance. More information is here at wintercycling.org/
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This video would not have been possible without contributions from:
* Pekka Tahkola: twitter.com/pekkatahkola
* Anders Swanson: twitter.com/SwansonAnders
* CycleYYZ: / @cycleyyz
* Dave Edwards: twitter.com/DaveLikesBikes
* Joonas Olli: twitter.com/O_Joonas
* Vélo d'hiver - Montréal: www.facebook.com/groups/velodhiver/about
* My Brother
* Wimpy snowflake Canadian who can't handle a little bit of cold
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Winter cycling study (in Finnish):
TALVIPYÖRÄILYLAAJUUSMOTIIVIT JA ESTEETTERVEYSVAIKUTUKSET
docplayer.fi/7216725-Talvipyoraily-laajuus-motiivi…
Map of bicycle underpasses in Oulu and the surrounding area:
www.google.com/maps/d/u/1/viewer?mid=1rMd5XedFvMJF…
BLUEGRYB | Rotating Icebreaker
GRYB (YouTube/CC BY)
• BLUEGRYB | Rotating Icebreaker
www.bixi.com/en/where-do-all-the-bixi-go-in-the-wi…
How to Keep Cyclists Riding Even in the Frigid Snowy Winter
The two key lessons learned by Northern European cities.
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-26/how-to-…
Ice cycles: the northerly world cities leading the winter bicycle revolution
www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/feb/12/ice-cycles-…
Music: "My Touque's Too Tight" by Drool Puddy
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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:05 You can't cycle in the winter
0:36 Introduction to Oulu
1:29 It's not the cold
2:21 First: safe cycle paths
4:20 Second: proper winter maintenance
6:08 Lessons from Oulu
6:39 My experiences with winter cycling
7:37 Gushing over how awesome Oulu is
8:00 It's not as cold as you think
9:40 Progress in Canada
10:48 Canadian excuses
11:29 Winter Cycling Congress
11:59 Conclusion
12:24 Patreon shout-out
12:37 Drool Puddy music video
All Comments (21)
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The 2024 Winter Cycling Congress will be held in Edmonton (Canada) in February 2024. More information and registration can be found here:
www.yegcyclingcongress.ca/ -
Here in Slovakia, we treat cyclists and drivers equally in the winter. We don't plow anything and it is safe for no one.
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"the Dutch and the Germans"
shows French and Belgian flags -
I had a friend from Iceland who would always say, "There's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing"
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"people will ride a bicycle in the winter if the city is designed for it." I'm sure more people would ride a bicycle regardless of season if cities were designed for it.
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Winter cycling, or as the Finns say, "Cycling".
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Around 10 years ago in Saint-Petersburg (Russia) government representatives traveled to Helsinki, Finland to learn "secret" of Finnish clean streets at winter. That they got was bitter disappointment - there was no magic secret. It turned out that to keep streets clean and nice at winter you actually need to clean them...
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The secret is the plowing and NOT putting salt on the paths. I have had friends who winter cycle in Toronto and their bikes are eaten away by the road salt.
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9:03 I like how you used a French flag for NL and a Belgian flag for Germany at the same time.
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"The Dutch" showing a Franch flag............ "and the German" showing a Belgien flag...
Darn it... -
And here I am... A Brazilian, in Sydney Australia, feeling weirdly invested in a video about winter snow-cycling in Canada's and Finland's winter.
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as a year-round cyclist from Oulu I appreciate this video. I guess the ability to do that was something I had taken for granted and it's slightly surprising to hear that it's not common sense to do it the way we are doing.
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I remember being pulled over for biking on the sidewalk in bc Canada during the winter. It was the most infuriating situation because there’s 3 feet of piled up snow in the bike lane so I don’t know what he expected me to do, other then bike in the middle of the road. He let me off with a warning ticket but even a warning ticket pissed me off because I’m being as safe as I can, while the city neglects the bike lane, intentionally pushing snow into it. Making it impossible to use 🤦♂️.
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In elementary school I tried to make a habit of biking to school everyday, but it was just IMPOSSIBLE. When I biked on the road, I got honked at and had to dodge all the cars, ESPECIALLY all the parked cars that made it impossible to just bike on the curb. When I biked on the sidewalk, I had pedestrians yell at me and tell me to go on the road. I WAS ELEVEN. Why can't Canada just get some dang bike paths in our towns and cities already??
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i'm from oulu and never realized that in rest of the world cant cycle on winter..
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As a Canadian i can confirm i have fell off my bike multiple times slipping on (literally) 1 inch thick dumping grounds of salt on sidewalks all over the city, and 0 times on ice. Not to mention gross brown slush everywhere, and every creek/river becoming saltier than the Dead sea
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I think what impresses me the most in this video is how everyone can leave their bikes laying around without fear of it being stolen. Here in America, that would never happen. They’ll snatch it as soon as you turn your back on it.
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Those slush-filled "cycle paths" give me so much anxiety 😨
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Canadians: "You can't cycle in the winter, it's too cold!"
Also Canadians: Pays $400 to stand for 4 hours in the cold to strap boards on their feet and ride down a mountain -
8:20: this is extremely accurate. if anything there's an art to *not* dressing too warmly, because otherwise you end up drenched in sweat and open yourself up to hypothermia risk.
Edit: Granted, that's based on heat management over a 10-15 mile ride.
