More about Winter Cycling

Numbers

There has recently been some winter-cycling-related chatter among some of my Facebook friends. Some of them say that they are still cycling and have posted pictures of themselves out on their bikes. One person even reported going out for a short trip on a recent morning when the temperature was down to -16 degrees!

I recently biked from my home in Toronto's east end to Yonge and Bloor, a trip of about a dozen kilometres. A check of Environment Canada's weather archive informs me that it was -7 degrees and not at all windy when I made my trip. There had been a fair amount of snow in the days before I made this trip, but enough time had passed for the snow to be cleared from the roads. It was a typical winter day for Toronto--certainly not onerous conditions for those inclined to cycle in the winter.

However, during my ride, which occured around 10 a.m., I counted only eight other cyclists on the road; in fact, I would have seen only six except that I had to make a small detour that added a bit of distance to my ride and two more cyclists to my tally. Granted, I was riding after rush hour and I surely would have seen more cyclists about if I had been riding an hour or two earlier. But even if I was out after rush hour, eight cyclists over a twelve-kilometre trip is a small number. I can't imagine how many cars I must have seen during that same trip. Thousands? The issue is not so much the numbers of bikes as it is the ratio of cars to bikes.

Salt

One aspect of winter cycling that alarms me is the amount of salt on the roads. On the one hand I'm glad that salt is preventing ice and snow build-up, but on the other hand I'm astounded at the colossal amount of salt that is used. In the winter my chain and gears are perpetually coated in salty grime; I have to apply oil and WD-40 before almost every trip. Come spring, I'll carefully wash my bike, but doubtless I'll need to replace the drive train before too long, largely due to the salt that gets thrown onto it each ride.

It is not just the salt on my bike that concerns me; it is the salt that gets into my body. Road salt, not table salt, mind you. When the roads are dry, traffic is constantly kicking up fine particles of salt, which everyone on the road inhales, cyclists all the more because we are usually breathing more heavily than people in cars. Recently a fire truck raced past me and left in its wake a billowing cloud of white salt. I find that there is so much salt on the roads that I can actually taste the salt when I ride. Come to think of it, if I can taste the salt I must be ingesting small amounts of it, too.