Winter biking is joy! We loved seeing live feedback from members who shared their favorite things about winter biking.

Our first session was Safety, Routing, and Handling. Amanda (she/her) has been commuting in the winter for a long time, and also has experience with bikepacking events in Alaska in the winter!

Amanda gave some great tips for staying safe in the cold, tips for keeping your bike upright on the ice, and things to keep in mind when choosing a route in the winter. The slides from her presentation are linked here.

Our second session was Winter Bike Maintenance. Lisa (she/they) has been a bike mechanic for over ten years, and she has been riding through the winter since 2011.

Lisa gave us some suggestions for how to maintain your bike weekly, monthly, and seasonally. Their slides (linked here) are a wealth of information!

Our third session was What to Wear. Raven (she/her) and Jenny (she/they) both enjoy winter fat bike racing, and both commute on their bikes.

Raven and Jenny shared a long list of ideas for things to wear, and reminded us to start with what we have. It is also helpful to take notes on weather conditions, what you wore, and how you felt to get a better idea of what works for you. Raven and Jenny’s slides are here.

We loved seeing tips from people attending the event.

The event concluded with a gear swap. As always, first-time winter bikers selected items first, and no one was required to bring anything in order to participate. Thank you to our wonderful community members, as well as Angry Catfish, Free Bikes 4 Kids, and Express Bike Shop for their generous donations! And thank you to Seward Coop for providing snacks.

If you missed the gear swap, remaining items are shared with the WTFNB trading post on Facebook.

A big THANK YOU to all of our volunteers who make this event happen! Grease Rag is an all-volunteer organization, and we could not put on these events without all of the amazing people who share their time, skills, and knowledge.

Happy riding!

We’ll learn, connect, and share our collective knowledge on the basics of winter biking, supporting and empowering a community of FTW people to enjoy a safe and fun winter riding season.

• Date: Saturday, November 1st
• Time: 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM 
• Location: Minneapolis Central Library, Pohlad Hall, 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis

The afternoon will feature skill shares on the basics of winter biking, in a safer space. This year’s sessions include:

• Bike Maintenance
• What to Wear
• Safety, Handling, and Routing
• Self-Care will be interactive between sessions and we will provide resources on this topic. 

Schedule of sessions:

10:15 am Routing and Safety

11:15 am Winter Bike Maintenance

(Lunch break at noon)

12:30 pm What to Wear

1:30 pm Gear Swap

A community gear swap with essential winter items and bike gear will finish off the event.

Things to know about the Skill Share

This event is open to all FTW (femme, trans nonbinary, two-spirit and women) riders! If you are a cis man who benefits from cis-male privilege, please respect this space and do not attend this event. Read more about WTF is FTW.

This event is NEWBIE and BEGINNER FRIENDLY! Come with questions and leave feeling more confident and ready to take on Minnesota’s most interesting season.

Masks are required in the presentation space. The smaller classroom has snacks; if you are not actively eating or drinking, please keep masks on during the event. The library does not require masks. Please stay home if you have a positive test or feel any symptoms.

This event is FREE. We want to keep things as accessible as possible to FTW, so this event, like all of our events, are volunteer-organized and run.

We run on DONATIONS of labor and goods. If you would like to donate your labor (volunteer) or goods (gear swap, snack table), please contact us at greaseragmpls at gmail.

The gear swap will include goods donated by community members like you! You’re invited to bring bike gear you don’t use, a sweater you outgrew, studded tires you want to pass on, or base layers you no longer need, for example. First-time winter bikers are given priority at the swap. We accept gear for all biking seasons. 

The skill shares are meant to share the basics with you. We encourage you to engage with our social media, make real-life connections with people at the skill share, and to attend open shops if you wish to learn more. Because there are so many approaches to biking, like life, it is impossible for us to tell you every detail of everything you might need to know! So be prepared to have some lingering questions – but don’t worry, we have a large community of people who are interested in helping you.

From the 2009 Winter Biking Skill Share

Here are some of the things I mentioned at the last Grease Rag Winter Maintenance Session just in case you need a few reminders on how to stay safe out on the roads of this great city.

Take it slow – Especially on turns, bridges, train tracks, intersections, etc. Make sure you allow yourself extra time to get to places you need to be. Things get slippery out there and you need to be more alert than you would be biking under more ideal weather conditions.
Be extra wary of motorists – I’m sure we’ve all had our fair shares of close calls on the roads, and now that its starting to look more like winter around here we need to prepare to bike more defensively around other vehicles. The roads tend to be narrower especially if they haven’t been plowed yet. Know that cyclists are allowed to bike in traffic lanes whenever necessary and remember to use your hand signals when ever possible.
Try to avoid major roads (especially during rush hour) – I know how invigorating it feels to zoom by all those suckers stuck in their little cars (or gas-guzzling SUV’s), honking their horns at one another on Hennepin, during rush hour, while the winter fresh breeze blows through your hair….[sigh]… But try to avoid it! Minneapolis is pretty good about plowing their trails within 24 hrs of a snowfall, so make sure to utilize the bike paths as much as possible to separate yourself from traffic.
Layer up! – Margot gave us a lot of useful information on this topic already. Keep your extremities nice n’ toasty, invest in some windproof outer layers, start out cool, avoid cotton, dress accordingly to the type of ride you’ll be doing, etc.
Stay Visible! – It should go without saying that one needs to stay visible during winter as much as any other time of the year, if not more so! As a cyclist you are legally required to have both a white front light and a red rear light. This is not only for motorists to see you, but it is for other bikers as well. Reflectors or reflective fabric or tape help a lot too.

Speaking of reflective, check out this sweet stuff – a little pricey but hopefully soon a more affordable roll will be more widely available to us poor folk – Scotchlite 680 reflective vinyl

From https://www.flickr.com/photos/rjl20/2292327237/in/album-72157603795420697/