Winter Cycle Commuting | It Might Be Grim, But It’s Not All Bad

It can be all too easy to let the days drift by in a convenient shuttling by car, of postponing the rides to work until just those glorious hot days when it’s just too nice not to. Lazy cruises breathing in warmed soil and scented flowers. They’re good for the soul, though not necessarily the waistband. Mid-commute (home, of course) refreshing pint, anyone?

When the weather is grim enough to make the bike a quicker – or more reliable – means of getting to work, all the logistical and time excuses go out the window. Now it is all about whether you can be bothered to make the effort. Will you layer up in waterproofs and deal with the drying out and dripping at the other end, or will you try your patience in a queue of traffic? Will you squint into driving rain, or attempt not to breathe near any snotty commuters on an overcrowded and overheated train as it sits waiting for a tree to be cleared?

For me, this conundrum has an easy answer. The bike wins every time. The horror of sleet is nothing compared to the trauma of being stuck with a carriage full of germ carriers. The joy of scooting past queuing traffic, even with shoes and gloves full of water, is much greater than sitting in that queue. And I’m so scared of driving in snow that I’d much rather get the mountain bike out of the garage than fray my nerves behind the wheel.

I’m pretty sure I’ve noticed an unexpected bonus of riding in grim weather too – I swear that drivers notice you more. Perhaps the ‘Blimey, they’re certifiable’ aspect of spotting a rider pedalling through a steady inch of standing water while yet more rain sheets down from above helps register the presence of a cyclist in the brain. Perhaps in the summer months there’s an element of jealousy at the ‘cyclist’ out ‘playing’ while the driver drives to work, that in the winter months turns to incredulity and sympathy for the ‘lunatic’ out ‘braving’ the weather. I also suspect that your colleagues may be prepared to cut you similar slack – a few minutes late to your desk garners fewer grumbles when you’ve just been out there suffering, not topping up your tan.

I’m not going to pretend that these commutes are nice, or fun. They are truly, horribly, painfully, awful. Cold hands, wet feet, a bum doused with chilly water, grit in your teeth. And it doesn’t end with the ride – there’s the half hour or so after. Getting out of wet things, warming up enough to get showered, then finding places to dry all those wet things. For the return trip, the added horror of putting all those still wet things back on. Ugh. No, it is not fun. Certainly not Type 1, probably not even Type 2. These rides are more like ripping off a plaster, or getting your legs waxed. They’re commutes to be got over and done with, as fast as possible, because the end is worth the means. Accept that it’s going to be unpleasant, but that at least it will be over quicker than the slow torture of traffic. As an added bonus, getting it over and done quickly means you’re working harder, getting fitter. Even the mid-ride pint no longer has an attraction.

Add them all together into a winter collective of grim, and by spring you may be able to look back on them as a unified body of Type 2 fun. Remember that time you couldn’t get into your house because your hands were too numb to use the key? Or the time your lunch leaked into your clean socks? How about the day when it snowed and you got to ride home in big fluffy flakes? Or the morning where the sun broke through the rain clouds just as you got to the office? From the warming fringes of spring you can look back with your trim waistline and think, yes, it was all definitely worth it. Bring on the winter miles.