Visiting The Winter Cycling Capital of the World - and other cool life-sized cities along the way

Mikael has talked about the Winter Cycling Capital of the World for years in his work as an urban designer. It's a reference for the tired old misconceptions about "you can't cycle in the winter!". So he embarked on an epic journey in search of both life-sized cities and winter cycling cities. And he was amazed by what he found in the dark of December in the north of Europe. Winter cycling is as old as the bicycle and isn't going anywhere.
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Visit Umeå: visitumea.se
Visit Luleå: visitlulea.se
Visit Oulu: visitoulu.fi

[@brainstorrming]

Hello to all the staunchest bicycle adepts! 🖐😀 I live in Yekaterinburg, Russia. I have been working as a bicycle courier for thirteen years. Our city has a population of 1.5 million. I do daily computing 38 kilometers diagonal of the city. At the same time, I drive from the north-eastern outskirts through the central square to the office of my employer on the south-western outskirts. There are very few cyclists in winter. Nevertheless, if the weather is good, then during the trip I meet up to five people. Sometimes the weather is relatively cool, and then cyclists are rare. The coldest temperature on such a trip this winter was -34 ° C and the wind was strong, so on the way I went to supermarkets to warm my hands and feet. There is a lot of snow in our region. Today we have skidded all the roads, and the snow continues. Tomorrow the weather forecast is -21 ° С. 😀

[@parus_1671]

What a pleasant surprise! Oulu is my hometown - I knew it’s known for winter cycling but to hear it’s a capital, wow! I personally like to use studded tires (it’s faster and lighter to cycle compared to wide tires imo). When it’s dark (almost all the time smh) it’s also mandatory nowadays to have a light in the front and back of your bike. Suitable clothing makes the whole thing much more pleasant. A helmet provides extra warmth and of course protects you. But yeah, infrastructure and maintaining play a _huge_ role as well. On the bike lanes, snow plowing and covering slippery ice with some gravel happen every day if needed. Winter cycling is great because - you get to exercise and be outdoors while going to work, getting groceries, etc - it can be quicker that going by bus or by car esp during rush hours! - environmental benefits - despite it being a hurdle sometimes, you can get some great sense of accomplishment - you don’t have to be super ”sporty” (i for one am not) to do that, it’s perfectly ok to go your own pace

[@AssBlasster]

This is the best winter biking video that I've seen. I knew Malmo and Oulu are great biking cities but these smaller ones up the east Swedish coast are pretty solid too. Better than anything in my small Idaho town that may or may not pave the multi-use trails. Seems that you even cycle between cities too if you wanted.

[@christill]

And where I live 10 miles west of Brighton, U.K. we basically never get snow any more and it would be so easy to do all of this. But I’m beginning to move beyond the anger and starting to just see all of these cycling improvements in other countries as our collective cycling improvements. Each of them is making the transition harder to ignore for councils and governments and making it happen faster overall. I think the next year or two here will be a pain in the ass but beyond that I feel like we’re going to be moving quickly in the right direction.

[@giancarlomartini2133]

I know that feeling of anger too, and I'm in living 30km north of Toronto. European countries are praised by a majority of cyclists here, but a majority of cyclists is less than 1% of the population, and progress is slow! All I know is that we have to keep on moving.

[@LifeSizedCity]

It's all about infrastructure and, in winter cities, maintenance. In Copenhagen, the cycle tracks are cleared first in a snowstorm. /Mikael

[@christill]

@@LifeSizedCity I kind of feel like that’s a good barometer for whether you should build infrastructure at all or wait. If you’re not willing to put bikes first in winter conditions, any infrastructure you build will suck and no one will want to use it anyway. Save the money for when you actually have leaders who care. Good example with the covid lane they got rid of. During the spring full lockdown there were loads of first time cyclists on the car free roads. Once the covid lane was put in, I didn’t see any new cyclists or families on it.

[@fenner_0]

Glad to see you enjoyed Oulu! The city has put lot of effort into improving the bicycle infrastructure over the years, of course it's not perfect by any means but I think the fact that people use their bikes all year round truly speaks for itself.

[@legojayman]

Wow!! Living in America and driving into my local strip mall makes me so sad when I know what could be. I live in kind of a rural area on the outskirts of a metropolitan zone and there is just zero pedestrian or cycling infrastructure. It's four miles into town from my parents house and there is not a single stretch of sidewalk or bike lane the whole way through the gorgeous Pacific Northwest forest.

[@hanstun1]

Michelin put out new winter tires last year that allows me to cycle in Toronto's shitty maintenance of bike paths for at least half of the winter. No metal on them, rather they are somewhat wide but most importantly, they stay soft and they grip at low temperatures.

[@LifeSizedCity]

I saw hardly any studded tires on that whole trip. Normal bikes with wide tires do the trick. /Mikael

[@Merrinen]

I've done -30 C cycling at Oulu some 15 years ago with about 8 km travel distance iirc. The crackling sound of snow is awesome, the routes are well maintained, but the cold does make everything heavier. The plus side is that you get very cool looking "frost beard" to your clothing. As long as you balance your clothes with the weather the experience shouldn't be bad at all.

[@joffroyboutin7456]

Our mayor here in Gatineau always said that he wanted to make our city more cycle friendly, but he neglected the most important part... snow removal!

[@jarekweckwerth1390]

Wow. "Pestilence" used in a KZbin video. Much impressed!

[@Hablainfo]

I would love your opinion on some Dutch cities, there is interesting biking culture there as well

[@robertsmme]

One of the things that I noticed from all your photos, is that the design of the bikes in use. Here in England, you get offered either a road bike or a mountain bike. There are very few examples of the practical sit up and beg type bikes for sale. But one of the advantages of that style of bike is that it is quick when you want it to be, but it happily handles low speeds and quick exit and entry. I would not ride my bike snow here but I would get on an upright step-through version, because it would be safer in the event of a slip.

[@viktorvolosin9372]

Would love to see a video about Prague. There are barely any bike lanes and lots of hills, which makes it fairly difficult to bike around the city. There are narrow cobblestone streets in the historic part of the city and car infrastructure in the rest of the city (Smíchov, Vinohrady etc.) .

[@ElectricityTaster]

The editing is a bit too fast to read for my slow eyes, but looks awesome.

[@johnfife3062]

Winter tires though, right? Doesn't anyone use seat covers to peel off the ice and snow and not ass freeze? LOL'd at your taxi comment -- was so waiting for that. Your Helsinki ride -- always more fun when someone else's pedaling. Copenhagenize in Chinese -- crazy how backward they've come in 40 years since Beijing was mighty rivers and seas of bicycles.

[@LifeSizedCity]

I saw more studded shoes than studded tires on that trip. Never see them in winter in Copenhagen, either. Normal bikes with wide tires. Boom. I was bummed I missed the last bus and had to take that taxi. :-) /Mikael

[@vaiyaktikasolarbeam1906]

municipal cargo bike share - It s the first time I ve heard about it.

[@joonaskekkonen5160]

There are libraries and recycling centres where you can borrow cargo bikes as well.

[@LifeSizedCity]

There are a few cities in Europe with it. Vienna is the largest of them. /Mikael

[@RKreflex]

Great video, thank you for sharing

[@marktrvls1218]

Very Very cool video indeed Mikael, happy cycling

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

The crown in my obsession for better cycle conditions here in CPH. was the Whole-Year-Cycle-Streets, glass-roof-covered cycle-ways and routes. One of the main-cycle-streets, 40.000 cyclists a day, - if we invest equal to one front car window pr. cyclist, then they can cycle 24 hours, 365 days free of rain and snow. It is quite expensive, the budget of snow cleaning, and it will soon pay back the investment. Weather-protection/adjustment is the basic principle behind the development of the human intelligence, which made us leave the caves in the past. The principle Roof is wide spread and a granted part of the modern invironment, what would the world be without the Roofs. We can divide in three basic types, Home, Transport and Work. In temporated areas the umbrella is protection against rain and snow, in tropical areas, it is protection against the burning sun. The Vlits-project in Holland, - Eindhoven/Tilburg was cancelled because of environmental considerations (?) the cost were only 80% of the price of the curb-stones in CPH. In Ørebro (S) it was decided to weather-protect the most used cycle-route, and 40. mill S.Kr were marked to further weather-protection, there was a architect-competition with seven suggestions, but for 'some' reason ? it was put on pause, and later cancelled. Here in CPH we have some examples of nice glass-roofs, some is nearly three decades old, they have not even been washed, they just maintain them self. CPH CycleMayor Holger the 1'st - Cykel Logisk Institut. (The Modern Transport Structure)

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

My 60 years of experience in winter-cycling, is in loose snow, to have a loose hand, and slightly vibrate with the other, to create 'the riffle-effect', then You will go strait through , and not drawing a waved line-path. Think about the moto-cross riders, when they use the one leg in turns, not to fall over, when slippery. Just using the normal thin tires.

[@dmytromiroshnichenko5507]

One more video from Uppsala (70 km from Stockholm) where many people cycle in the winter as well (-13°C on the video) kzbin.info/www/bejne/l3OsfpSBps6NrJY

[@StarryNightGazing]

Gawd Milan is somewhat moving in this sense but we're a long way behind and not improving enough :(

[@romanchannel69]

Now you have to travel over the Trans-Siberian railway

[@LifeSizedCity]

Did that in 1990 :-) /Mikael

[@catprog]

It is summer you can't cycle in. 50ish day over 30C a year

[@Merrinen]

You can reduce sweat with elecric bicycle though.

[@LifeSizedCity]

People have cycled in hot climates since the bicycle was invented. Seville is extremely hot in the summer but they went from 0.2% on bikes to 7% in only four years after they put in a city-wide infrastructure network. Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona are other cities that are growing cycling levels. /Mikael

[@philrichmond5919]

30C is a comfortable temperature in Australia. Heat and cold are just excuses, they’re not reasons to avoid riding.

[@Kevin_geekgineering]

you still publish book on paper back? what about trees?