Perhaps no posts in two months have left the impression that my e-bike is in hibernation for the winter. Actually it’s more an indication that I’ve been riding so much I haven’t had time to post anything.
Until this year I’ve always hated riding in winter. That’s probably because I’ve never done it before, assuming it would be a horrible experience. Bad assumption.
I logged 216 miles on 29 rides in November, most in any month since June. With the snow and a week out of town in December, the totals dropped to 137 miles and 24 trips. So far in the eight days of January, I’m at 79 miles on 13 trips–a pace to top 300 miles. In January!
Yes, it’s cold. Yes it gets dark before I get home. The roads are in terrible condition and getting worse by the day. But just as I discovered back in the day before my knees went bad when I could run five miles a day, getting outside in winter improves my mental state a lot. I really savor being outside, and the bracing cold becomes refreshing, the spectacular sunsets a bonus on the evening commute.
(And this wouldn’t be an ebikeKC.com post without extolling the virtues of e-biking.) E-biking makes winter biking so much better. I find the worst thing about winter cycling to be the vicious gusts of wind out of the south on those days when the temperatures climb into the 50s and 60s. With an e-bike, I can neutralize this by upping the level of pedal-assist, cutting through the wind with relative ease.
e-biking in Kansas City 