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.

For 13 years now, Grease Rag has been hosting a Winter Skill Share & Gear Swap to share our collective knowledge on how to commute safely during the coldest, more challenging road conditions time of year. We offer a free gear swap at the event to allow people to have access to cycling gear that tend to not be financially accessible to everyone. Grease Rag’s WSS 2021 will be hosted at the wonderful Solcana Fitness in South Minneapolis. We will be requiring everyone to wear masks during the event. There will be sessions on route handling, and bike maintenance outside the gym; and then a session on what to wear, self care, and route planning inside the gym with the gym’s garage door open to allow max air ventilation. We will have warm food and drinks available, and will provide a sneak peek of “what to wear” before the event so people can layer properly. Come with questions and leave feeling confident and ready to take on Minnesota’s most interesting season.

This FREE event is NEWBIE and BEGINNER FRIENDLY open to all FTW (femme, trans non-binary, 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.

The event itself will be on Sunday November 7th from 2:30pm to 6:30pm. Our breakout sessions will be as follows:

Session 1: 3:00pm-3:45pm Handling and maintenance outside workshops; Indoor session (Route Planning, Safety, What to wear) *Handling will be at Matthew’s Park and be an obstacle course/hands on event

Session 2: 4:15pm – 5:00pm Handling and maintenance outside workshops; Indoor session (Route Planning, Safety, What to wear) *Handling will be at Matthew’s Park and be an obstacle course/hands on event

Gear Swap will follow/end the event. A raffle will be held during lunch between sessions. Since the event will be outdoors during a colder time of year, check out this past blog post from a previous WSS on how to dress for the weather.

Email weberp0317@gmail.com…
– If you are a FTW person and are interested in volunteering for the event (leading a session, collecting donations, set up day of, and more!)
– If you are a FTW person OR ally, and want to donate items to the gear swap.
– If you are a business/organization that has items we can collect for a raffle we do during the event. We are currently looking for food/warm beverages donations as well if you are part of a food establishment.

Thank you for reading, and we hope to see you at the WSS!

At the Winter Skill Share, our goal is to tap into the deep wisdom of our Twin Cities FTW biking community so that we can all have a safe, fun winter riding season. We will learn together by sharing our experiences of winter biking from our own unique perspectives.

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

This event is FREE and 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.

Online Skill Share – Saturday, November 7, 11am to 2pm

Co-hosted by BikeMN

Register for the event on EventBrite: tinyurl.com/y2duyaoo
We will share the Zoom link with registered participants. Capacity is limited to 100 people so register ASAP!

Workshops will be on self-care, bike maintenance, what to wear, and bike routing/handling. There will be ongoing raffle prizes during chats too!

Outdoor Skill Share & Gear Swap – Saturday, November 8, 11am to 2pm

Meet up for the in-person (but socially distanced) skill share and gear swap at the tennis courts on the southwest corner of Powderhorn Park. Masks are required!

We will do a stretch and go-around, then let people begin biking (or diving!) to the workshop stops. Each session will be 15 minutes long. The Gear Swap will happen at one of these stops so be prepared to bring home goodies! The skill share and gear swap ends at the Powderhorn Park near the picnic tables where we will have another raffle!