However, there are a few gotchas that winter cyclists do need to consider. Many cyclists are sticking with their road bikes as they travel to work and play. This works fine when the weather is above 32F…. which it generally is in daylight hours.

But heading to work in the morning may be another story. Even on completely dry days, a small amount of dew may freeze overnight. Cars seem to be able to increase this amount so that — at intersections, particularly — there is a black sheen on the asphalt.

This black sheen is ice. It often is not thick enough to be noticed. Especially when the asphalt is a little rough. But you may leave bone-dry streets at home and run into heavier black ice at lower elevations.

If you are on a non-studded tire bicycle, you need to be cautious when you run into this situation. There are several things that help (although the safest route would be to get studded tires…):

• Get off the bike and let some air out of your tires. Lower tire pressure gives you more contact area which may prevent you skating across an intersection.
• Avoid sharp turns at speed. If you do hit a sudden ice patch, your balance in a curve may be just enough off to send you flying.
• Slow down! Braking isn’t the best thing to do on ice.
• Get to know your route and road conditions. Paying careful attention to potential icy spots and knowing what conditions create them is invaluable information.

If you constantly find yourself riding on ice, you may want to consider studded tires. The money you spend is good insurance against a nasty fall.

Lance's Karate Monkey is doing the work this December

Tell me a little about you and your commute. I’m 28yrs old and I live in Windsor Heights by the Des Moines Bucs Arena. I have always been a biker and have commuted before in the spring/summer/fall here and there on nice days. This summer… I decided that rather than pay the insurance that is required to drive I would pack my car in the back of the garage and use the money on good biking gear instead. So I have been amping up my cycling gear so that I am ready for the cold months ahead.

How long is your commute? Approximately 9.5 miles 1 way. I work as a Mortgage Representative at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in the building by Jordan Creek Mall.

I have several routes that I like to take, one which consists of almost all trails and wide sidewalks but adds 2 miles to my ride. And there’s another that is shorter and more direct but is a 50/50 mix of trail/4 lane road.

So you are going to cycle commute this winter? There are several things that interest me about winter cycling. It’s new and foreign to me at this point and that excites me. I have biked in the spring when there has been ice leftover in certain shaded areas of the trail but never biked in the dead of winter.

I have never even participated in the Brrr Ride. The extent of my winter biking was biking around in the snow as a kid on the acreage I grew up on. I have always been active in the winter and enjoy running outside versus inside on the ‘mill and am excited to have a new outdoor aerobic activity to do December – March.

Do you have a special bike or are you going to use your regular daily rider?
I have 2 bikes that I will ride. I have a Surly single speed with disc brakes that currently has cyclo cross tires on it. I have some knobby Kenda mountain bike tires that I may put on if need be.

Then I have my lean green ice machine! It’s a Cannondale mountain bike with 29 inch Nokian studded ice tires. It may be excessive and I may not even need it. We will see, but it’s comforting to know that it’s there waiting in the garage for the really gnarly winter conditions that Iowa is known to produce.

This messenger bag carries his work gear

I did wear a regular day pack that I already had for day treks and I didn’t like having to dig through it to fetch stuff that was on the bottom.

I also have a compressable dry sac that I use inside of this new bag. I roll up my dress slacks and button down shirt every morning, then wrap my belt around them to cinch them down and compress them into the dry sac so they don’t take up much room. I throw my shoes on top of that and still have about half of the bag left for storage, which typically houses my lunch or goes unused on my daily commutes.

You’ve got a pretty good system going and sounds like you’re having fun. What do you tell people when they ask about bicycle commuting?
At first I started commuting to save money on gas, oil changes and car insurance. Now I do it because I enjoy it and it’s better for the planet.

I used to drive to work. After work I would drive to the gym to do cardio and then drive home, or I would drive home and then go for a ride or run once I got home. Why not bike to work and bike home instead? I’m healthier and happier thanks to bicycle commuting and I’m doing something good for the planet as well. It’s a win win situation!

Lance's winter bike

294 studs on this Nokian!

The Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority (DART) reports a record Bike & Ride numbers for use of racks on the front of bikes. Through October (10 months) DART reports more than 35,774 uses; the previous record for 12 months was 31,168. When transit staff sought funding for the racks in 2005, they projected 7,145 annual uses. Des Moines commuters (technically multimodal commuters) have blown way past those original projections. Times five!

source:Des Moines Bicycle Collective Newsletter Dec 2011

But in case you didn’t, researchers at the University of Wisconsin did a study on the health benefits of a simple trip to the grocery story using your trusty bicycle. As you would expect, their findings suggest than there is also a strong financial benefit for the community, both in terms of reduced costs for society and also better health for the cyclist.

They found that if the Midwesterners ran half of their short-distance errands by bike rather than by car, 1,100 deaths would be avoided each year, and $7 billion would be saved in reduced health-care costs. The trips were 2.5 miles one way; less than a 25-minute bike ride, the researchers figure.

The benefits were based on a presumed reduction in air pollution particulates and ozone, which increase the risk of heart attack, strokes, and asthma. They also factored in the health benefits of increased exercise, and applied that to the 31 million people living in the Upper Midwest.

The results were published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

“We were conservative,” says Jonathan Patz, a physician and co-author of the study, who heads the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The researchers figured that people in the Midwest would do errands by bike only in the best 124 days of weather each year. “It’s only about 4 months worth of biking.”

Still, the benefits were enough to still reap health benefits, even though a larger chunk of the year might be spent on the couch, watching the Packers and the Blackhawks on TV. And people who weren’t biking benefited, because they were breathing in less car-generated pollution, which contributes to asthma and cardiovascular problems.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/11/02/141937325/secret-to-a-long-healthy-life-bike-to-the-store?sc=17&f=1001

As well, we are getting temps that are very reasonable for this time of year. Basically, if you have a shell and maybe a light sweater or extra wicking layer, you shouldn’t have a problem.

Of course, you should be considering some serious winter clothing too since winter is on the way.

But the calm before the storm is always so glorious.

Oct 28 10-day Weather

Carfree Cities web site

In September 2007 Jakarta held its Car-Free Day that closed the main avenue of the city from cars and invited local pedestrian to exercise and having their activities on the streets that are normally full of cars and traffic. Along the road from the Senayan traffic circle on Jalan Sudirman, South Jakarta, to the “Selamat Datang” Monument at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle on Jalan Thamrin, all the way north to National Monument Central Jakarta, cars are cleared out for pedestrians.

There’s also a big web presences in Europe mostly through sites like the British World Carfree Network

Every September 22, people from around the world get together in the streets, intersections, and neighbourhood blocks to remind the world that we don’t have to accept our car-dominated society.

But we do not want just one day of celebration and then a return to “normal” life. When people get out of their cars, they should stay out of their cars. It is up to us, it is up to our cities, and our governments to help create permanent change to benefit pedestrians, cyclists, and other people who do not drive cars.

The presence isn’t that large yet in the US. Nonetheless it’s a good excuse to save some gas and get out on our bikes.

If you are interested another site is JH Crawford’s Carfree Cities, which has lots of photos and text about designing cities that do not need cars.

10th and Grand

This 4-day event saw dozens of volunteers hit the street with surveys and tabulation sheets to try to get a handle on how bicycle and pedestrian traffic is growing in Des Moines.

Why is this important? We know there are more bikes on city streets, but we also need to have statistics on the growth over the years. From the project web site:

One of the greatest challenges facing the bicycle and pedestrian field is the lack of documentation on usage and demand. Without accurate and consistent demand and usage figures, it is difficult to measure the positive benefits of investments in these modes, especially when compared to the other transportation modes such as the private automobile. An answer to this need for data is the National Bicycle & Pedestrian Documentation Project, co-sponsored by and Alta Planning and Design and the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Pedestrian and Bicycle Council. This nationwide effort provides consistent model of data collection and ongoing data for use by planners, governments, and bicycle and pedestrian professionals.

I signed up for the Saturday counting at the 10th and Grand counting station. Working with me was Troy, an affable cyclist and coordinator of a Sunday bridge club at the Library, who just happened by City Hall that morning and decided to join us. It was a cold, cloudy September day. Temps in the low 50s and a bitter wind out of the East.

There were a number of cyclists who agreed to help with the survey portion. One gentlemen from Ida Grove was passing through on a trip to Omaha and then north to his home. Another cyclist — with a fleece cap under his helmet — was on his way to Cumming.

There were lots of cyclists in the two hours we spent counting and surveying our corner. I counted over 30 bicycles… not bad for a cold September day, but, of course, hardly one percent of all the car traffic moving through Grand Ave.

Curiously, we both noted that 10th and Grand didn’t seem too popular with the cyclists. In fact, there were a lot more hanging out around the corner at the Centro coffee shop.

Nonetheless, this project is kind of important. Subsequent enumerations will give everyone a handle on how bicycle traffic — and possibly pedestrian traffic as well — is growing in the City.

At the end of two hours, we were both pretty cold. It’s amazing how temps in the 50s can affect a person who is just standing around. A City employee dropped by and picked up the counting station, Troy headed off in his truck and I got on my Bianchi and beat it off to warmer grounds.

Actually, the counting station was a square bucket

City Hall employees were on hand to train us and hand out surveys

The public web site suggests this is a typical survey

Our volunteers looked a little colder

The transportation funding bill is vital to the growth of cycling in Des Moines. Considering the benefits — among them, a healthI get really depressed when I see so many new bicyclists on the streets and trails and then listen to some of the rhetoric from our elected officials.

The transportation funding bill is vital to the growth of cycling in Des Moines. Considering the benefits — among them, a healthier population and less wear and tear on our roadways — you’d think politicians would be standing in line to encourage us.

Not always so. This from Transportation Nation

A deal between Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress to temporarily extend authorizations for both the Federal Aviation Administration and surface transportation programs has hit a snag. And that snag is Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.).

Coburn is blocking the Senate from moving on to a combined FAA-highway bill approved Tuesday by the House. He’s objecting to long-standing language in the surface transportation funding bill, known as SAFETEA-LU, that directs 10 percent of some of the bill’s funds to non-road projects. About 60 percent of funds under that provision, known as Transportation Enhancements, go to biking and pedestrian projects. Other uses range widely.

The Oklahoma budget hawk took to the Senate floor Wednesday to list some of the projects that may be funded under under what the highway bill designates as “enhancements.” They include a simulator at a Corvette museum in Kentucky and “White Albino Squirrel Sanctuary.” Coburn complained that such projects are a waste of transportation dollars at a time when the country faces both deep deficits and crumbling roads and bridges.

“There ought to be a time in which we say enough’s enough,” Coburn said.

Any individual senator can object to consent requests that let the Senate operate more quickly. Coburn’s objection could force Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to go through procedural motions that would require days to pass the FAA-transportation extension deal.

If you are concerned, you can always contacts your elected representative and let them know how you feel. It certainly wouldn’t hurt. Try this url for quick access. http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/7093/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8122