MONTREAL (AFP) – Sporting four layers of clothing, a neck warmer pulled up to her ears, large goggles and a safety helmet, Montrealer Marie-Pierre Savard is ready to face the Canadian winter on her bicycle.
In the mostly French-speaking metropolis, more and more people, like her, are getting around by bike even in sometimes extreme weather conditions.
“It would be wrong to say that it’s exactly the same as riding a bike in the summer,” said the 38-year-old with short hair who believes that “it requires more concentration, better know-how and a different style of riding”.
But even in winter, for her, this means of transportation is unbeatable: It’s “simpler, more efficient, more ecological and more economical” than a car or public transit, she said.
Not even snowstorms and temperatures plunging to minus 40 degrees Celsius can stop the winter cyclist.
She confessed she actually “loves to ride when it has just snowed a few centimetres to leave the first tracks on fresh snow”.
On Montreal’s bike paths, it is not uncommon to come across kids in a child seat in the back, bundled up as though ready for skiing, on their way to school or daycare. They are quickly outpacing families who opt to pull kids in toboggans on sidewalks after a storm.
“At the beginning, there were very few of us,” recalled Frederic Venne, who is in his 15th winter on a bike. Over the last two years, a greater effort to “clear bike paths” of snow have convinced more neophytes to join those who have long been seen as diehards, he added.
It was an awakening for Mathieu Levesque, who only recently took it up. This 35-year-old bearded Quebecer says he “loves cycling during storms” and prides himself on being able to “do it every day”.
In just a few years, as in other cities around the world, the number and length of bike paths have exploded in Montreal, making it one of the most cyclable in North America.
It now has some 900 kilometres of dedicated bike paths, almost 80 per cent of which are accessible year-round, and has plans to add 200 kilometres more by 2027. The city’s stated objective is for 15 per cent of all trips to be taken by bicycle by then.
