Cycling The School Run In Winter
Cycling the school run in the winter can be just a bit more of a faff than in the summer. It’s cold and it’s dark and it’s often wet – not the most inspiring weather.
But it can also be really enjoyable – honestly it can. While I am not a big fan of the dark evenings, I do love those beautiful cold, crisp mornings. What I do like the dark evenings for is the chance to curl up on the sofa with a book and a cup of tea. Cycling the school run allows me to feel I have done my exercise for the day and can now feel good about the sofa.
There can also be massive advantages to cycling the school run in the winter. Have you ever noticed that there are more cars on the roads in winter? When the weather is uninspiring, it is tempting to decide to drive for lots of people. This means more traffic, more congestion, and more difficulty finding a parking space. On a bike, you can bypass all of this.
The same as cycling at any time of year, if you think it through and make sure you have the right equipment, travelling by bike can be a positive part of your day. Generally, I like the approach that cycling needs nothing more than a bike, but in the winter it is worth a couple of bits of kit to make it easier.
Dealing With The Dark
Lights are essential in winter. In Scotland by December it is still a bit dark when we head out to school in the morning and it is decidedly dusk on the way home. You absolutely must have lights – at least one on the front (white) and one on the back (red), but the more the better to be honest. I’ve covered lights in more depth here. In the winter it is even more essential to make sure your lights are charged when you need them.
Winter is also a good time for high-vis clothing. Give a child some reflective snap bands and they will happily decorate their bike and themselves with them.
Dealing With The Cold
Yes, it’s cold outside in the winter. But actually, it’s not as cold as you might think. Once you are moving you do warm up – it’s only the standing about parts which are cold. If you take the car, you and your children are still likely to get cold as you will still have to get from the car to the playground. The trick is layers – wear lots of them. Also, think about your fingers and toes!
Layers
Knowing how many layers you need to wear in order to stay the right temperature is important. You don’t want to be cold on your bike(s), but you don’t want to arrive a sweaty mess either. The good news is that, the more you cycle, the easier this gets to judge. If you cycle the school run everyday you will soon get the hang of judging how much to wear.
Hands
The position of your hands on the handlebars means that they will take the brunt of the cold as you ride. You really, really need good gloves to cycle in the winter. Without gloves it is a matter of minutes before your hands are painfully cold.
It can take a bit of shopping around to find the perfect pair of gloves for winter cycling. I think I have about eight pairs for varying degrees of cold. My favourite are winter mountaineering gloves – they were dear but they get daily use in the worst of the weather so they were worth the money.
Bear in mind that the wonderful winter weather is also likely to throw a fair bit of water at you. It’s worth having at least one spare pair of gloves (but really not eight, that’s taking it too far) because some days there is not enough time for them to dry between school drop off and school pick up. As a general rule, the thicker the gloves, the longer they take to dry. It’s also really difficult (and unpleasant) to get damp gloves onto wet fingers.
Gloves do not need to be cycling specific in order to work, although a bit of grip is good, especially on wet days.
Feet
Cold toes are not fun!
Be kind to your toes with thick socks and waterproof – and windproof – shoes.
Shoes with decent grips are also handy, along with slightly more grippy pedals than you might normally consider. These will stop your feet slipping off the pedal when it is wet.
Heads (and Faces)
Pre-covid ninja cyclist
I am going to assume you are wearing a helmet to cycle the school run (without getting into that debate).
The vents in most helmets can make them a little draughty in the winter. If you are finding your head is getting cold, you could think about wearing a cycling skull cap or a very thin hat underneath. Thicker woolly hats are best avoided under helmets as they stop the helmet from fitting correctly and doing its job.
I keep my woolly hat in my bag for the standing about in the playground bit once I get to school.
If you keep your bike in a shed or garage, make sure you bring your helmet indoors to dry if you get wet. Those spongy bits on the inside are really unpleasant when they are cold and damp the next morning!
Your face is actually more likely to feel the cold than your head (unless you are bald but have a big beard I suppose). I can highly recommend wearing a buff – they keep your neck warm and can be pulled up over your face for the ninja cyclist look.
Punctures
Sods law states that punctures will always happen when it’s freezing cold and pouring with rain. In the winter it is worth making sure you have a back up plan for if you do have a problem with a bike. There are few things more unpleasant than trying to mend a puncture with frozen fingers.
Dealing With Ice and Snow
I hate ice. I really hate ice.
Snow I don’t mind so much, at least it has the decency to be fun.
Icy road and paths when you’re on a bike are absolutely no fun, especially black ice which you don’t see until you hit it. If you have followed my advice in planning your route to school, you are very possibly using back roads and shared paths. The trouble is, these are rarely gritted and can get treacherous.
In the past I resorted to the car when we had snow or ice. This was a fairly miserable and stressful experience. Driving involved scraping the windscreen, sliding out of my street, sitting in traffic jams, struggling to find a space to park, then sliding around the pavements to walk from the car to school.
Then I discovered ice tyres. I LOVE ice tyres!
Ice tyres are basically normal bike tyres with little metal studs which can grip onto ice. They really work. They are fairly expensive, but if you are planning to cycle regularly through the winter then – in my opinion – they are worth it. I fit the ice tyres on the cargo bike at the first sign of ice in the forecast and leave them on until around March.
You can ride on ice tyres when there is no ice. It will slow you down a bit and make it that little bit more effort (I like to think of it as off-setting the seasonal mince pie consumption). It also sounds a little bit like cycling through rice crispies (my eight year old’s description). They can be tricky to fit, so once they’re on, it’s worth leaving them on. In spring you just swap to your old normal tyres and put the ice tyres away for the next winter.
This year, with my son now riding his own bike alongside me, we have also fitted ice tyres to his bike – he loves them!
I have had comments from onlookers in the past that it is too dangerous to cycle in the winter. I suspect these onlookers haven’t tried ice tyres. With the correct equipment, you can continue to cycle the school run on quiet road and paths with all the benefits you normally enjoy. Compared to skidding my car to school – with no ice tyres – or walking along icy untreated pavements, I think we are choosing the safest option for the conditions.
Enthusiastic bike cleaning
Looking After Your Bike
With wet leaf mush, grit and mud on the paths and roads in winter, it’s a good idea to give your bike a bit of TLC now and again. You don’t need to make a meal of this. A bucket of hot water and washing up liquid with a brush, then a hose to rinse it off (or another bucket of water) will do the job. Once the bike dries, drop a bit of wet oil on the chain (don’t go mad, a few drops then wipe of the excess with an old t-shirt or towel kept for the purpose.
In the spring, it might be worth contacting your local bike shop and booking a service to get everything cleaned up properly.
Dashing Through The Snow
Cycling the school run through the winter is likely to seem daunting until you give it a go. I have been doing it for years and it still remains the best option for us all year round.
Try it…and you might just find you enjoy it!
…but don’t forget the ice tyres!
Cycling The School Run Articles
This series of articles are based on a talk I gave in August 2020 for Greener Kirkcaldy. If listening is your thing, you can access the recording here.
The articles follow a kind of order as shown below, but can also be read in isolation. If you have questions or comments I would love to hear them and will follow them up with further articles if I can.
