studded tyres on the road

Dottie from LGRAB (Let's go ride a bike) got her feathers ruffled when Copenhagenize posted about cycling in winter in Copenhagen. Copenhagenize bragged about their experienced cyclists who can get from a to b without studded tyres.

Obviously, the conditions are not the same everywhere. Dottie has to cycle on the icy roads with cars. On those pictures there's not much ice to be seen, but it certainly looks slippery. And you can't see black ice.

Earlier I posted about how important segregated bikeways are for winter cyclists here in Oulu. I even took some pictures to show the difference between the surfaces on the road and on the bikeway.

Road surface, early January.

I took a new shot to see how the ice has spread.  The photo was taken at night so the colors are a little off. Like I wrote, the ice is covering more of the road surface. There is unpacked snow on the shoulders and nobody would like to ride on it. You'd have to cycle in the middle of the road. Studded tyres would be really useful.

The bikeway looked pretty much the same as before.

If we did not have segregated bikeways, almost nobody would cycle in the winter. Even now, three of every four cyclists will not cycle in the winter. Having to deal with cars and icy roads - forget it! We'd be lucky to get 1% modal share.