[leadin]Nobody parties like the Finns. That was evident during the swanky receptions that followed each of the three day-long seminars that constituted the fourth-annual Winter Cycling Congress. More importantly, nobody rides like the Finns either – at least in winter.[/leadin]
![mummiska](https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.gearjunkie.com/uploads/2016/02/mummiska.jpg)
The globetrotting conference was held this year in Minneapolis but began in 2013 in Oulu, Finland—the self-proclaimed winter cycling capital of the world.
Of the 77 percent of residents who bike at least “sometimes” in Oulu (which includes the 22 percent who commute by bike regularly), nearly one in three persists through the eight-and-a-half months of snow and “thermal winter” (temps under -15 degrees Fahrenheit). Compare that to the paltry, if domestically respectable, rates in Minneapolis of 4 percent who commute by bike, less than half of whom brave the elements through the five or six months of Minnesota winter.
Finnish dedication to bikes is understandable; while four-barrel carbs, V-8s, and ah-ooo-gah horns fueled a post-war economic boom in 1940s America, automobiles didn’t catch on in Finland until the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. For those twenty years, while the U.S. was paving multilane roads and vivisecting interstates, the Finns relied on increasingly bike-friendly and bike-efficient streets. By the time vehicles hit the scene, a sizable chunk of the population was committed to cycling.
1) It’s Too Cold
“It’s not too cold, it’s never too cold… It’s about clothing.”
![Bike Bike Bear](https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.gearjunkie.com/uploads/2016/02/Bike-Bike-Bear-700x466.jpg)