If we are going to have an e-bike revolution, then people have to be comfortable doing it all year round. After I had to do a four-mile ride recently, I tweeted this photo of me dressed for the 5 degrees Fahrenheit and windy weather, and noted: “Whoever said ’there’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing’ nailed it, riding in -15 C and just fine.” This started a discussion and elicited a tweet:
My Twitter-length response is short for saying that dressing for e-biking is different than what you would do for a regular bike: You don’t get as hot and you don’t need to follow the old rules about dressing in layers that you can peel off as you warm up. In fact, depending on your speed and your boost, you can get as hot as you want to. I have previously suggested you should dress as you do for walking and not make a big deal about it. I learned this when I used a regular bike, learning from Michael Colville-Andersen of Copenhagenize:
And he doesn’t even like e-bikes.
Treehugger senior editor Katherine Martinko, who rides all winter, took a different view in her post, titled “Yes, You Can Ride an E-Bike All Winter Long.”
She wrote:
Looking at all the stuff I wore on that recent ride, it is clear that I wasn’t following my own advice. The shoes may be basic Blundstones with the sheepskin insole, but this is not how I dress for a walk around town. I have MEC waterproof pants that I use for cross-country skiing, long underwear, a merino wool sweater, a thin puffer jacket, and then a biking-specific 45NRTH cycling-specific shell that I was given a few years ago. It shouldn’t be black—Martinko goes for bright orange—but it is covered in reflective material. I have a Gore Windstopper biking balaclava topped by my helmet and clear ski goggles. My hands are kept from freezing by Dakine ski mittens which make it very hard to change gears.
I did not overheat because I go very slowly when it is snowing and possibly icy, even with my studded tires. But this was definitely overdressing. It took me 10 minutes to get out of it all when I got to my destination. But the only actual bike-specific gear that I bought was that balaclava, a few years ago when my nose was freezing off during a ride—everything else was out of the ski bag.
Matt Herndon at Profit Greenly says much the same thing: Use what you have.
He makes a very good point that if you have a healthy outdoor lifestyle, this gear is multipurpose.
And when I look back at what I was wearing, I do wear a lot of this stuff as my regular clothing, just not all at once, and minus the stuff on my head. I am always wearing this “athleisure” wear, including the 45NRTH cycling jacket, whether I am on a bike or not.
So in the end, there is a kind of consensus: There is no need to go out and buy bike-specific gear; many people have closets full of sporty winter stuff. But you won’t get as hot as you do riding a regular bike. Generally, you do as much work as you want. And as Yvonne Bambrick noted in her Urban Cycling Survival Guide, whether you are on a bike or an e-bike, the best thing about winter cycling is “it makes you feel like a bad-ass to know that the cold can’t beat you.”
I was not alone out there in the cold. Engineer Shoshana Saxe, who has been on Treehugger a number of times, was out in the cold as well and makes a very good point about long underwear.
