Cycling in winter and other issues of accessibility amidst heavy snow
- Feb 5
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 6
I guess Estonia is not the only European country that has been blessed with real cold temperatures this winter. We are 15 degrees below zero as I write this and despite my initial optimism and commitment to ride my bicycle throughout the year, that mission has been halted for now.
Since I returned from holiday in the beginning of January, to a beautifully snow-covered Tallinn, I've only managed to take two bike rides: my regular 17km trip to work and back home, and one short ride to the groceries store. It might be relevant to say that on both occasions there was a minimum of 30 cm of snow and the temperatures were not above -7C. While I enjoyed the long ride to the university, it was simply a bit too draining because the bike lanes are clearly not the priority of street maintenance here. This meant cycling through uneven surfaces of snow here and there, ditching bike lanes fully under snow shoveled from the sidewalk or from the car lanes, experiencing invisible slippery bits of road and ultimately, a lot of sweating before I got to work. My bike is electrical and I paid a whole lot of money to put the winter tyres on, but the infrastructure maintenance, or lack thereof, simply makes the 8 km commuting too hard.
Clearly, cycling is is not the only form or mobility that is restrained. This is also true for pedestrians. Every year, a few days of chaos arrive with the always-unexpected snowfalls. The main, motorized roads are prioritized for cleaning up the snow -which is rational up to a certain level- but what about the sidewalks and entrances of educational institutions? While exciting and beautiful, these days of snow always turn into an endless hassle for pedestrians. And this comes from someone with an almost perfectly funtioning body. What about the elderly and the people in wheelchairs? How come we still fail to understand that snow piles and icy roads impose immobility on a large part of the population, confining the elderly and people with functional diversity inside their homes. Walking around with a stroller isn't great fun either as mothers need to navigate between the snow-blocked sidewalks, snow puddles at street crosses and ocasionally cut-off roads. No surprise that 90% of parents take their kids to school and kindergarten by 4-wheel drive cars.
The above image shows the entrance of my kid's kindergarten a few days after a big snowfall. While we are enjoying taking her to kindergarten with the sled as snow piles often turn into spontaneous fun, it was sad to see the obstacle this meant for some other parents with less abled bodies. It took the maintenance people a few days to remove the snow mountain and clean up the parking lot in front of the daycare. So now we are back to normality. That is - cars parking right in front of the entrance, with their motors on to keep them warm. In te mornings, as I slide my kid past the cars, we both inhale the toxins coming from their exhaust pipes. The effect of the visible, white cloud of toxins makes it worse than in other seasons when, at least, we are getting contamimated without it being so explicit.
Yet, tp end with a more positive note - this winter is offering a variety of outdoor activities I am enjoying despite the cold weather. There are ice roads on lakes and on the sea where one can go ice-skating. And sauna is always great with the cold plunge option. Below is a photo of an old well we use for cooling us down after the sauna. With such low temperatures we need to break it up several times during the sauna session. But this is fun, too, and provides an excuse to be outdoor.
I'll finish with this surprising motorsports event we came across close to my parents' place. This is an informal ice road on the sea. In a Natura 2000 protected area. Each "sportsman" was asked to pay 20 euros for being allowed to rally their tuned cars on the ice. And this lasted for the whole weekend. Lots of testosterone, lots of noise. What I found most interesting about this, though, is the gendered culture around this activity. It was, of course, only men who showed up with their cars and trailers attached to them to transport the racing cars behind them. Big gas tanks were brought along to refill the vehicles when needed. A pimped Škoda served as the snowplow every now and then to keep the road fast and safe, I guess. Some men came with their kids, as well. After all, Saturday must be daddy's day for some, right? One of them, I'd say a 6-year old, also sat in the pimped racing car that had nothing but the essential pieces in its interior. No cushions no nothing. Nor was she wearing a helmet.
This mobility culture strikes especially strong with our own romantic idea of the countryside as a place of peace and somewhat untouched nature. The area is under the Natura 2000 protection zone and we are just a few km from Estonia's biggest nature reserve. But we're also in an area of low population density, few services and poor public transportation. An area where automobility is absolutely essential for survival. So no wonder this type of winter sport is fashionable in the countryside where us, the urbanites come to seek tranquility.
