Winter in Minnesota can be delightful, gorgeous, fragile, challenging, and sometimes far too gray. In January of 2018, Melissa Wenzel issued herself a challenge to a winter-weather version of April’s “30 Days of Biking.” Fellow winter bicyclists in Minnesota and around the world joined Melissa in her pledge to bike every day in January. In 2019, Fred Kreider decided to extend their own January biking goal and biked every day for a full year.
For 31 Days of Winter Biking 2020, I want to share with you the joy, the beauty, and the camaraderie of winter bicycling, featuring the voices of some of the winter bicyclists themselves:
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- @comotrekker
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- Nicole Salica
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- Ian R. Buck
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- Melissa Wenzel
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- @mikeapolismn
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- @deveric
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- James @EBikeSTP
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- Jenny Werness
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- Dan Marshall
Ride a bicycle among the icicles! Happy 2020! Happy #31daysofwinterbiking! https://t.co/PyCbxDMQVH #bikelife #winterbiking
— Melissa Wenzel (@melissawenzelMN) January 1, 2020
Trails in StP were great today. Vento, Como, & Wheelock all clear (tho still icy).
Thanks to @SaintPaulParks and @stpaulpublicw for a great job. #winterbiking pic.twitter.com/uMX5RYx0kx
— Dan Marshall (@DanMarStP) January 1, 2020
https://twitter.com/mikeapolismn/status/1216093700855685120?s=20
https://twitter.com/eBikeSTP/status/1217936805405908992?s=20
The only reason I had to leave the house today was to shovel the sidewalk. But because it's day 18 of #31DaysofWinterBiking, I decided to try using my bike to help! It went about as well as you'd expect. pic.twitter.com/nV14rCDNGl
— Ian R Buck (@ianrbuck) January 18, 2020
New bike day, @ternbicycles HSD S8. Kiddo immediately wanted a ride so to the library and grocery store we went.
Thanks for the awesome bike @perennialcycle
#leavethecarathome #NBD pic.twitter.com/0tBe8xjxsX
— /dev/eric/🇵🇷 (@deveric) January 26, 2020
#31daysofwinterbiking day 31: Finished the month with a long morning ride on the Greenway & East River Rd. Looks like it’ll be 447 miles in January after this evening’s ride home. Thank you everyone for all the inspiration! pic.twitter.com/4KsziLD70Q
— Dan Marshall (@DanMarStP) January 31, 2020
31/31 Spending the last month watching you #WinterBikingWarriors has pushed me to keep going. Your presence out here every day is normalizing the necessary & absolutely inspirational. HUGE thank you to @melissawenzelMN for starting #31DaysOfWinterBiking pic.twitter.com/trOzbizFFD
— comotrekker (@comotrekker) January 31, 2020
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- Sam Morgan Trail
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- East River Road
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- Bruce Vento Trail
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- @IanRBuck
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- Midtown Greenway
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- @eBikeSTP
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- Mounds Boulevard
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- Bruce Vento Trail
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- Lake Harriet
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- @DanMarStP
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- @comotrekker
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- @IanRBuck
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- Mississippi River
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- Saint Clair Avenue
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- Robert Street Bridge
Bicycling in winter is truly joyful, despite the challenges. I personally love snow and cold, but not all of us do – as Melissa wrote last year:
Lastly, while I still don’t love winter, I am getting better about embracing the season and feeling more comfortable biking year-round.
I hope you’ve all had a happy January, and found some delight in the winter weather. Please feel free to share your own stories of winter bicycling in the comments, or read more of January’s tweets at #31daysofwinterbicycling.
Don’t forget! This Friday is Winter Bike to Work Day, which is another great opportunity to try a snowy ride.
Winter Bike to Work Day 2020
Thanks for the awesome article, Jenny! It’s been great connecting with other winter cyclists, I’m glad that Melissa started this hashtag.
Me too! It’s fun and inspiring to see so many snowy bike riders around. Plus, the routing crowdsourcing is invaluable. Thank you!
Even though I ride year round, I would have never willingly, purposefully tried to ride every day in January if Melissa had not started this. Seeing the other riders participate, not just here in MN but from all over the world, really helped push the energy level needed to help keep this going for me. Plus, it’s hard to believe how much fun it can be to embrace Mother Nature when she’s essentially giving us the middle finger here in Minnesota.
Completely agree. It’s so wonderful to see your photos and insights from daily riding. Thank you!
I loved seeing all these pictures! I can’t believe nobody ever told ALL these people that it is impossible to bike in the winter and nobody does it. In fact, I saw two more people taking their bikes off the bus this morning that haven’t gotten the memo!
We are everywhere, all the time!
Wait, it’s impossible to bike in the winter? Gosh, I wish somebody had told me earlier! I’d better stay home until April.
(-: HAHA!
I remember hearing a winter biking speaker present at my work ~2011. Before she spoke, I was jazzed to bike in the winter. After hearing her realistic information about gear and winter maintenance, I realized it wasn’t for me.
Except I started biking occasionally in the winter. “On the good days.” Then it turned out there were more good days (or as they say, no bad days, just bad layering). And then I got studded tires so there were vastly more good days than bad days. And then I learned which layers worked best for me. And then I learned how to wash my bike, which isn’t that difficult and allows me to use household things like old tooth brushes, spray bottles, a rag. Dish soap.
Ugh. It’s easy enough for me to bike. Now it’s harder for me to find a different mode of transportation in the winter, now that we moved to an area of Saint Paul without routine bus service and we only have 1 (electric) car between the two of us. I may as well just bike. That’s the easiest thing to do.
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I love this on so many levels and am deeply honored you wrote this. I was just trying to not be so curmudgeonly about winter and to be honest, I was pleasantly surprised that it helped. I will say that seeing bike tracks in newly fallen snow still really, really, really help me out on the bad days. And make me smile and wave and feel filled with joy on the good days.