Thank you so much for watching this reaction and for letting me share my thoughts! This very much made sense to me. Not Just Bikes has great insight into the subject. Thank you for the recommendation!
Original video and credit to:
Why Canadians Can’t Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)
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40 Comments
I hope you're not wearing flip flops when you drive your car, that seems like an accident waiting to happen.
Anyways, the best thing for infrastructure is options, good roads for cars, bikes, pedestrians and buses. Trams, high speed rails, ferries… freaking dog sled and jet ski public transport. Give me every option, and make them all high quality.
Oulu is my hometown, and yes I cycling all year round
"At night".. might as well be 3 or 4pm. That's how fun Finland is during winter. The shortest day of the year in Oulu is 3h 35min. In the most northern part of Finland the sun sets at 26th of November and the next sunrise is at the 16th of january.
Its not weird, Nordic people bikes all the time.
Stop talking over the narrator… then you can understand every word!!!!!!
Studded tires on snow and especially on ice
Please reaction geographi now indonesia.
The fact that Finish people bike in the snow doesn't surprise me. Historically speaking, Scadinavians and Northern Germans/Dutch people were known for being hardy, tough people (refering to Roman and Medeival sources) so they are well accomidated to operating in the cold.
As a person who cycles to work everyday here in Finland, even in the -24c (-11.2F), hard pack snow is the best road surface. Feels like riding on a pillow
what i as a canadian have biked in snow we can get a ski in front for our bkes
The politicians in Canada are owned by the car lobby. No improvements will happen.
Lithuania, no car, was cycling all winter. Wish I had studded tires, tho.
My mom's turning 70 and she's got an electric bicycle and still bikes like cray. She's never had a car. She's had the chance to get one, but never wanted one.
The first 15 minutes of being in the cold are the worst
I live in a similar cycling town in northern Sweden. Many people cycle all year round here. The problem is not cycling on snow in the cold, the problem is when it gets warm and the snow melts – that's when it becomes ice and slush. So where we live, it becomes a problem when it gets warm in the winter, not when it's cold.
When it's cold half the year, you no longer care as much about not looking as good when you're wearing a hat and lots of layers – it's the same for everyone.
No, you can't shovel all the snow away when you live where it snows 6 months a year. That would be completely uneconomical and would ruin both the roads and the plows.
Yes, the snow dampens sound a lot and brightens up the surroundings. Also, there are no birds singing up here in the winter, so every spring when the birds start chirping and the snow melts it feels like you've lived in a sound vacuum all winter.
in finland we have bike roads in every city and village you can bike across the finland from south to north and back in every city and village from every where to every where and in cities and villages from every where to every where
I mean its like riding a bike… Sorry about that 😂
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It’s to dangerous to bike 🚲 in America 🇺🇸 their are psychopaths driving around they need to be in prison
America doesn’t respect bike 🚲 riders that is why we are so fat 🫪
I'm not aware of snow plows that remove all of the snow. That would just destroy the road surface. Snow plows do damage the roads a little bit, especially if the road surface isn't very flat. The only way to remove all snow and ice from a road is to salt it, which is horrible for the environment and can affect the quality of drinking water if you're salting roads in water table areas. When pedestrian and bike lanes get icy, we spray some tiny stones on the surface to add grip. In the spring when the snow melts, street sweeping machines sweep up the stones so that the asphalt is clean again.
But yeah, many European countries design cities so that they are easy and safe to navigate by walking and biking. And walking or going on a bike isn't a poor thing either, it's just good exercise. I have a fatbike for winter conditions (it has great traction on snow and the tires are so wide and have low pressure so the tire doesn't get caught in any unevenness in the snow, like tire tracks) and another bike with narrow tires for when there isn't any snow or ice on the roads.
Regarding the cold weather, you get used to cold in a few weeks. If all you ever do is walk from your front door to your car door, you never get acclimatised to the weather. Bike a few kilometers to work and back every day for a few weeks and you won't feel cold doing it. It's also a clothing thing. Wear too thick winter gear or too many layers and you'll get super hot and sweaty biking. Gloves are probably the most important bit of snow gear for biking longer distances than a kilometer or two. No matter how fast you're pedaling, your fingers will get really cold if you're wearing the wrong kind of gloves for the weather. My commute is a bit under 2 km (about a mile) and I wear the same jeans in the summer and in the winter without any extra layers underneath no matter what the weather is like. My top situation does vary though. Basically always a t-shirt, if it's not summer then always a hoodie or similar, and then a thin unpadded jacket or a thinly padded jacket depending on how cold it is. I never wear my thickest winter jacket when biking. It's way too warm for any physical activity.
In Finland snow removal is typically contractor work. Basically just about anybody with snow removal equipment (and they don't care what kind you use, results matter) can be like "hey I can remove snow!" and the city will assign you some area that you need to keep clear of snow, regardless of what time it is, and pay you for the work. Generally it's quite "strict" for how soon you need to act, for maintaining a working society (avoiding delays), keeping people from getting hurt (which costs a lot of money too), and so on. I live near a small mall type structure that has three fairly sizable shops in it, large parking lot. Whenever it snows, at 4AM or whatever it might be, I hear and see snow plows clearing both the parking lot and the back side where trucks empty their cargo from snow (often at night time), and they also drop gravel on the short stretch of road the trucks will take to make sure they have good traction. It's like an automatic system that "just happens", so common that you stop noticing it fairly quickly.
I'd also like to point out that there IS an unavoidable downside to good winter maintenance: In a lot of these shots you see those black specks of gravel on the snow, to make it safer for bikers and pedestrians. When the spring comes and snow melts, the roads will become EXTREMELY dusty for a brief period. When those gusty spring days hit, you see clouds of sand dust rising from roads, and some people get symptoms from it too. Luckily most towns and cities react fast and when it's unlikely it will snow again they send a fleet of machines to brush the paths and collect the gravel so it can be used again next year.
Personally I used a bike to get to school for all of my 12 years of studies, every fall, winter and spring, regardless of weather. There was a bus stop right next to my school, but it felt "stupid" for me to pay for bus fare, even if the weather was bad (heavy sleet fall in high wind or such), so I never used it. I just dressed accordingly. And it helped keep me in shape too, especially in the "young adult" age when exercise no longer comes naturally.
I grew up in Toronto where I lived until I was 40. I never learned to drive but cycled to school and work almost every day, except during the worst snow storms. It isn’t that difficult as long as you have a bike built for it. A lot of Canadians cycle in the winter
I remember back in the 1980s when we still had proper winters in the UK most years. I knew a dedicated cyclist who cycled to work all year round on a proper racing bike with skinny racing tires. The trouble was that he used to get constant punctures in the winter, From the slivers of flint that were in the gritting mixture the local council spread on icy roads.
we don't use bikes that much in good weather anymore there are better options then.
7:08 That could have been filmed before Christmas, when the sun sets around 2:00 PM. Since it's cloudy, it's already dark enough at 3 PM, like in that video. I don't know the time of the filming.
..not riding a bike unless you’re poor. Or fat! (Sorry, taking the car I mean.)
One of the best childhood memories is when the freshly plowed road suddenly for some reason or other turned into mirror like ice. Everybody rushed to get their bikes out and we spent hours slipping and sliding on the ice. That's how you learn to balance, accelerate and break on a slippery surface.
In some areas even in Finland it can be a bit challenging to bicycle in winter. I used to live in a small town on the south coast of Finland. In a neighborhood outside of the center. Once it snowed about 20 cm (about 8 inches) overnight. Plows hadn't got to that area yet, when I left for work. The first short stretch was a bit challenging. I do like snow though. It reflects light, which is nice for the dark winters here. I take snow any day instead of rain and fleet. Rain and fleet are not uncommon in Finland either. Especially in the south and south-west.
Surprisingly no mention of use of studded tyres for winter use, as surely riding on any kind of ice is dangerous. I've used them in UK and they really do work,
It isn't always easy to adapt old city centers for bicycles in winter. You often have to truck the snow to the city outskirts. Here in Stockholm there is a lot of winter cycling but it is far from perfect near the city center partly because they are slower clearing snow for bikes than for cars but mostly because in many places there isn't room so the bike lanes get filled with snow. There are some prioritized routes that get cleared properly, so you can learn where you can cycle even in the snow.
Have you heard bike bus – movement there in usa? It's about cyckling to schools with your frends.
When I lived further north where the snow sometimes came down as blizzards I still enjoyed going out and walking. Proper clothing, scarf, hat, boots all made it very enjoyable to me.
As far as long twisty scarfs go you can get a knitting friend to make you a ring scarf (I call them foreskins 🙂 ) which just fits around your neck and covers your face. Mom did a few custom ones for me which will also fit one over the other for times when it is blowing even harder or it is extra cold where another layer of scarf to breath through is needed to keep the air you are breathing warm enough. This saves a lot of the feeling of being cold and unpleasant.
There is no bike riding infrastructer here in the country and in the winter I'd not go out there, even when I walk along the road it is dangerous because of how many people aren't paying attention to where they are driving.
Oh, and the muffling of the sound from snow is very effective because of the shape of the snow flakes. When snow gets turned to harder packed ice then it will get louder again.
At the end, you drive about 12 km along a sidewalk next to a larger road at a gradually accelerating video speed.
"It is quiet in the snow primarily because fresh, fluffy snow acts as a natural sound absorber, porous like acoustic foam. The snow's structure contains numerous tiny air pockets that trap sound waves, preventing them from bouncing off hard surfaces like roads or buildings. This muffles noise and creates a serene, quiet environment.
Key Reasons for the Silence:
Acoustic Absorption: Fresh, powdery snow can absorb up to 60% of sound. When sound waves hit the fluffy surface, they become trapped in the microscopic gaps between snowflakes, diminishing their energy.
Reduction of Reflection: Instead of reflecting sounds, the porous structure of snow disperses them, reducing overall noise levels.
Atmospheric Conditions: The cold air near the ground and warmer air above can cause sound to bend upwards and away, rather than traveling horizontally.
Reduced Activity: During a snowfall, fewer cars are on the road and fewer people are outside, decreasing the overall production of noise.
Factors That Change the Sound:
Compaction: When snow becomes compressed, melts, or turns into ice, it loses its ability to absorb sound.
Type of Snow: Light, powdery snow is the best at absorbing sound, while wet, heavy snow is less effective."
The bit about studded tire usage in Oulu doesn't sound right, neither does the explanation of plowed roads and hard compacted snow being better for grip. Compact snow is much, much more slippery than if you'd have a coating of loose snow on top of the pavement.
10:06
Hey my grandpas place is just behind those structures. Hes been there since 2016 🙃
6:54 – You just did explained it. The snow catches the sound. The snowflakes do build a fine crystal mesh, that reflects the sound bit by bit in itself, eventually consuming huge amount of it. The flat ice on the other hand is like concrete, it reflects almost all the sound.
12:24 But the winter service personnel is on the level of the firefighter and get paid for their work, so they pay taxes as contribution and all. Employing people to do a work pays back in return, and by some weird chance you get clean streets and paths too.
One important notice about riding a bike in the winter is it makes you (almost) immortal. It does improve your blood pressure, it makes you more resilient toward the cold and it makes you a bit younger too.