Author: Val Dodge

It didn’t take long: I installed studded tires on my bike on Tuesday, a mere two days after wondering about their value. My regular route was quite icy thanks to Tuesday’s freezing rain and I decided that I’d accept any drawbacks to studded tires in order to get the extra margin of safety.

After quickly considering a couple of options, I ended up getting a pair of Schwalbe Snow Studs from the MEC. They seem to be a good compromise for commuting in a Toronto winter because they ride almost like regular tires on dry pavement, and you can just lower the tire pressure a bit to get more spike->road contact on those messy days. They came in very handy on Thursday’s sloppy ride home, when I could definitely feel the extra grip as I turned onto a couple of side streets for the last leg of my ride. As an additional benefit, they have reflective stripes on the sidewalls, contributing to my goal of being as noticeable to motorists as possible. The only real trick is not to get overconfident; in any kind of marginal conditions, it’s pretty easy to get into trouble quickly.

There’s just one problem with this: my quest for safety has turned me into a law-breaker. According to my reading of the regulations, it’s just as illegal to use studded tires on a bicycle in Ontario as it is to use them on a car. There’s some question about the reasoning behind Ontario’s ban on studded tires, and the rule makes even less sense when applied to bikes. Surely a bike, even one with studded tires, causes less road damage than does a car weighing a hundred times as much. I’ve been thinking of writing a letter to my MPP—who happens to be the NDP’s Environment Critic—asking him to push for an exemption for bikes.

In the past, I’ve always put my bike away for the season at the first snowfall and brought it out again when the streets and paths are clear of snow in March or April. It’s not that I couldn’t ride in the winter, it’s that I didn’t want to expose my bike to the destructive power of road salt. Plus, my rear brake or derailleur cable always seems to snap around mid-December, requiring about two months to replace it. Or so I always told myself. It seems that the first snowfall has always provided a good excuse to put the bike on the repair stand where I could visit it every couple of weeks to make all those little adjustments and repairs that I’d been putting off all year long.

But a couple of things have changed this year. First and foremost, I finally have a beater that I can sacrifice to the slush and ice without crying too much in the spring. Second, this is my first year commuting by bike. It’s easy enough to put the bike away for a couple of months when you’re a recreational rider and can spend the winter hiking or snowshoeing instead, but it’s a whole other level of hurt when putting the bike away means standing on a crowded bus twice a day with 75 of your smelliest, grumpiest acquaintances.

So as the snow started falling a month ahead of schedule a couple of weeks ago, I’ve tried to keep riding as much as possible. We haven’t had a real dumping yet, so it’s been a gradual introduction to riding in conditions that I’d normally avoid. I’ve made a few observations that won’t be news to anyone who normally commutes in the winter:

• I need more lights and reflectors for the ride home. There’s just something about riding in poor weather that makes me want to be lit up like a Christmas tree. I usually have blinking lights front and back, reflective tape on my forks, one of those ubiquitous MEC cycling jackets, and an ankle strap. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve added a helmet light and extra reflectors. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be replacing my regular rear blinker with my oversized and much brighter rear blinker. In the next few days, I’ll be adding a bigger and brighter front light, some additional reflective tape on my pannier, and may get one of those reflective vests for good measure. Call me paranoid, but I’ve been less certain than usual that drivers actually notice me. It’s not just about riding at night, which I do all year long. What I really want is a helicopter following me all the way home with a 30-million candlepower searchlight trained on me.
• For the most part, car and truck drivers give me more room. Granted, I don’t commute downtown or through the worst of high-speed suburbia, but I’ve noticed a huge difference in the patience of drivers. More of them seem to be more willing to wait behind me for a few seconds while I take the lane to get around a spot of ice or snow, and when they do pass, they’re more likely to move into the next lane entirely rather than try to squeeze past. We’ll see if this courtesy lasts into the new year.
• Bike lanes are disasters. It’s almost like crews go out of their way not to plough them. On any other street, the ploughs get to within a few inches of the curb, but if there’s a bike lane, they’ll only go so far as exposing the solid white line, teasing you with what could have been. Given what I’ve heard from others, the city is completely unresponsive on this matter, coming up with excuse after excuse why bike lanes simply can’t be cleared. Yeah, and it would be impossible to announce stops on buses, too. I’m quite certain that I wouldn’t get any help on the matter from my councillor.
• I will never, ever again throw snow onto the street when I’m clearing it from the sidewalk. I’ve always tried to avoid doing that anyway, but after riding through a few snow plumes from people’s driveways, it’s much clearer just how much of a hazard it is. I hereby apologize to any cyclists I’ve endangered in the past. It won’t happen again.
• I’m still sitting on the fence about using studded tires. There have been days when I really would have appreciated the extra grip, but I’m not sure if it’s worth riding around on them the rest of the time.
• Some coworkers think I’m off my rocker for riding in this weather. I think it just adds to my aura of mystery and intrigue in the office.

Overall, I’d say that riding in typical Toronto winter conditions really isn’t that difficult or daunting. The roads are generally clear a few hours after a snowfall. Unfortunately, the same certainly can’t be said of any bike lanes along the way. I had to take a couple of days off the bike this past week for reasons not related to the weather, but plan to be back on the saddle come Monday morning.

A few recent discussions on other sites have covered the topic of essential gear for commuting by bike in the winter. They’ve covered the usual suspects of pants, jackets, footwear, lighting and tires, so I won’t duplicate that here. But one thing has been conspicuously missing from all of the roundups: panniers. Specifically, waterproof panniers.

I’ve had a pair of water-resistant panniers for years and learned the hard way one rainy day that “water-resistant” really means “leaks like a sieve when you least want it to.” The same goes for my “snow-shedding” backpack. And my raincover-equipped daypack is a little too small to carry all of my commuting gear with me.

When I started carrying my new ultra-portable PC everywhere last month, I knew I’d need something rain- and snow-proof for transporting it on those wet and slushy days through the tail end of the year. It’s one thing if my lunch and work shirt get wet in an unexpected storm, but quite another if I have to empty the water out of my hard disk.

After looking at various alternatives, I ended up buying a pair of Ortlieb TourBox semi-rigid waterproof panniers. Velotique was clearing them out and I may have gotten the last two. Most of the other models that I looked at had drybag-style roll tops, and I’ve never had much confidence in my ability to cinch them down properly. In contrast to drybags, the TourBox looks like a small suitcase—inside and out—and closes with a waterproof zipper. It also features a combination lock (to prevent casual snooping, not theft) and the best quick-release shoulder strap system I’ve ever seen anywhere.

It seems that it’s rained (or snowed, or slushed) virtually every day since I bought my TourBoxen four weeks ago. Having been drenched from both rain and road spray, I can verify that they are absolutely waterproof. I don’t think I’d take one swimming with me, but the handle the worst that the city can throw at them.

My only real issue with them is that I wish they were just a little bit larger. Not much, just a couple of centimetres in each dimension. As it is, I can squeeze my rain/cold gear, commuting lights, fully-loaded man purse, change of clothes, and lunch bag into a single 19-litre TourBox, but there’s not much room left over for anything else. That said, the squarish shape and full-open zipper make loading easy and efficient, especially for hard or oddly-shaped items that don’t much like more traditionally-shaped panniers.

Related: You can make your own waterproof panniers out of cat litter buckets. I first saw something like these about five years ago, but wanted something a little more office-appropriate. Seeing the relatively inexpensive Bikebins in the Winter 2007/2008 MEC catalog got me started investigating waterproof panniers a couple of months ago, but they disappeared from the MEC’s website after a couple of weeks and aren’t in the stores. I’m not sure why.