Minnesota’s snow and ice-filled winters are no match for bicycle lovers across the metro.
From January to early March, bikers pull out their fat tire bikes or add studs to their normal tires in order to take to the streets in the winter’s famously frigid temperatures.
Why do they forgo the comfort of a carseat and risk their warmth to traverse on icy roads and slush filled streets? There’s a few reasons.
“If you love cycling, at least for me, winter biking made me love it even more,” Ellie Hedlund said.
Hedlund is a longtime winter biking lover. Starting in highschool, she and her parents would head to the North Shore to spend days biking through the snow covered trails.
“We would basically just stay in a cabin and for three days go outside and ride bikes in frickin’ freezing weather,” she said with a laugh. “It’s something that is just such an obscure experience, putting on a bunch of bike clothes and then going.”
Hedlund graduated from the University of Minnesota last spring, and for three years on campus, she rode with the University’s cycling team. As the captain of the team her third year, Hedlund played a critical role in creating a mountain bike branch that rode year-round on trails throughout the state. Before the addition, the group was only able to ride together in warmer weather.
Riding in the winter is something that Hedlund recommends because there’s no other biking experience quite like it. By trusting her fat tire bike and Minnesota’s snowy winter trails, winter biking creates an experience all its own.
“I feel like even I have had the experience where I’m like, ‘It is five degrees outside, what are you even thinking?’ And then I’m like, ‘Oh, wait, I’ve done that.’ And I love it, it’s so much fun,” she said.
For bikers looking to try out some winter trails for the first time, Hedlund recommends any of the trails following Lake of the Isles and Bde Maka Ska in Minneapolis, the Grand Rounds trails that entwine themselves throughout the Twin Cities and the Midtown Greenway that connects Minneapolis and St. Paul.
John Benda, a life-long bike-lover and a self-described B+ rider, recommends biking along the transitway that connects the Minneapolis and St. Paul University campuses. The trail weaves itself through the East bank and along University Avenue, passing by Surly Brewing.
Benda is a member of the Twin Cities Bicycling Club (TCBC). With over 1,000 members, the group is the largest recreational bicycling group in the Twin Cities. They offer group-ride options year-round at different levels of difficulty and at different locations throughout the metro.
Benda began taking biking seriously after riding the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride (RAGBRAI) for 500 miles across Iowa with his sister in 1989. Ever since, he takes to the streets and trails year-round with TCBC, and every year his love for winter biking grows.
“If I did the same road biking that I do all summer, I’d get bored of it,” he said. “And it’s really so different to ride in the winter — plus it makes you feel like a badass.”
Benda explained that in warmer weather, speed is a larger player in bike rides than in the winter. When snow and ice cover the ground, not only do you need to focus more on balance, but the biking experience turns into something else entirely.
“It’s very zen-ish,” he said. “It’s almost meditative.”
With the focus of the ride taken away from speed and instead being placed on the experience of the excursion itself, winter biking offers a new view on the same old routine of riding on the street.
“It feels good, just kind of getting out in the winter. Most of the time, we’re just so cooped up and it feels good to be active,” Mitchell Seymour said.
Seymour first began winter biking in January of 2016 after being hired as a bike delivery person for Jimmy John’s, known for their “freaky fast” delivery due to their biking delivery service.
“My first shifts were super late at night, riding until like 3 a.m. in super, super cold weather,” he said. “I think I wouldn’t have ridden in the winter nearly as much if I didn’t have those shifts.”
After working at Jimmy John’s for two years, Seymour’s love for biking in the snow grew. With biking now one of his favorite modes of transportation, Seymour bikes year-round and finds himself engulfed in the biking community that exists in the Twin Cities. When asked about it, he does his best to convince bike riders to try out some winter trails.
“A lot of people think ‘How do you even ride your bike in the winter?’ but it’s just the cold weather, you know?” he said. “I think with winter riding, someone has to show you that it’s all good, and I really do feel like anybody can do it. Get out there in the winter, man. Super fun and it’s worth it.”
