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Kids In Finland Continue To Ride Bicycles To School In -17°C (1.4°F) Weather And It’s A Lesson In Commuting
Are you a cyclist? If so, are you one of the many who carefully puts old faithful into storage over the winter months, convinced that all that rain, snow and ice is just unsuitable for biking? Well, this Finnish town is living proof that winter cycling is perfectly possible with the right planning and infrastructure, and making us feel a little soft for getting in the car at the sight of a little snow.
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Pekka Tahkola, an urban well-being engineer for Navico Ltd. and a cycling coordinator for the City of Oulu, took a photo of the local school’s bicycle parking lot in -17C recently to show that no matter what the conditions, nothing is keeping these kids off their bikes.
Because although it might seem strange for some parents to let their kids loose on two wheels, exposed to the icy cold of a northern winter, here in Finland it’s a perfectly normal and healthy thing to do. “We organized a study tour for participants from southern Finland for them to see how cycling to school is taken care of in our city,” Pekka told the informative environmental website MNN. “We visited a couple of schools and also spoke a lot with local teachers and principals. I’m pretty sure this school is among the best ones. It is definitely not the only one, and there are numerous schools in Oulu where the majority of kids cycle and walk to school.”
Image credits: pekkatahkola
Image credits: pekkatahkola
Image credits: pekkatahkola
Image credits: pekkatahkola
Image credits: pekkatahkola
Image credits: TapioKettunen
“It’s normal; always been like that. I cycled and kicksledded to school when I was a kid, too,” he says. “And it’s the same thing even in minus 30 C.”
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Nina S 5 years ago
It's hard for me as a Swede to understand why this is a big deal, people ride bikes in -27°C bikes are more reliable than a car or bus as they easily break down in the cold
Lyyyy 1 year ago
I lived in Oulu (the city in the article) the colder it got during winter, the more people wanted to cycle or take the bus, because they didn’t need to mind their cars then. The problem with cars is that you have to leave them somewhere during your work day, and if it doesn’t have electricity for pre-heating the motor, how is the car supposed to work properly in -30 degrees?(They might start, but it is really bad for the non-electric cars) Buses work just great, they don’t get cold because they are on the move whole day.
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Rob Chapman 5 years ago
Kids in Finland ride bikes to school in below freezing weather, while kids in America get driven to school a block away. Let me tell you how ridiculous it is where I live (a quiet suburb in California). In the image I posted, you see a school. Yous ee houses directly across from the school. There's a woman that lives in one of those houses. She DRIVES her son to and from school every day. She backs out of her driveway, to the sidewalk in front of the school, drops her kid off, and pulls forward back into her driveway. Then repeats the process int he afternoon. Yep. Capture-5c...24-png.jpg 
Carla Rego 5 years ago
I live in a very cold northern state in the US where it gets 0° or -10° all the time in winter and kids are walking to school. They aren't wimps lol. Maybe it's just California haha.
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Nina S 5 years ago
It's hard for me as a Swede to understand why this is a big deal, people ride bikes in -27°C bikes are more reliable than a car or bus as they easily break down in the cold
Lyyyy 1 year ago
I lived in Oulu (the city in the article) the colder it got during winter, the more people wanted to cycle or take the bus, because they didn’t need to mind their cars then. The problem with cars is that you have to leave them somewhere during your work day, and if it doesn’t have electricity for pre-heating the motor, how is the car supposed to work properly in -30 degrees?(They might start, but it is really bad for the non-electric cars) Buses work just great, they don’t get cold because they are on the move whole day.
Load More Replies... Rob Chapman 5 years ago
Kids in Finland ride bikes to school in below freezing weather, while kids in America get driven to school a block away. Let me tell you how ridiculous it is where I live (a quiet suburb in California). In the image I posted, you see a school. Yous ee houses directly across from the school. There's a woman that lives in one of those houses. She DRIVES her son to and from school every day. She backs out of her driveway, to the sidewalk in front of the school, drops her kid off, and pulls forward back into her driveway. Then repeats the process int he afternoon. Yep. Capture-5c...24-png.jpg
Carla Rego 5 years ago
I live in a very cold northern state in the US where it gets 0° or -10° all the time in winter and kids are walking to school. They aren't wimps lol. Maybe it's just California haha.
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