Just a few years ago, it was accepted that a keen cyclist would typically have the best bike for summer racing. But when the weather changed, they reached the back of their shed and pulled out winter bike which had a cheaper frame and components, with mudguards/fenders.
But times have changed and modern roadies have a wider range of options to keep fit and entertained during the winter months.
So is winter cycling an endangered species?
What is a winter bike?
(Image Credit: Future)
The typical winter bike would have a cheaper and more stable steel or alloy frame geometry than the best bike kept for summer use. It could be built from replacement parts from the best bike or it could have cheaper components chosen for their sturdiness.
Crucially, I would have the release and usually the fittings for fenders/mudguards that the best bike does not offer. In the early days disc brakes fitting the fenders usually meant cheaper long rim brake calipers as the higher spec brakes didn’t have the length of the brake arms to fit around the fenders and winter tires .
While the best bike could be ridden with tubular tires, the winter bike would have cheap clincher alloy wheels. Wear and tear on the braking surface can be significant when traveling on wet and gritty roads, so a set of wheels that can withstand some wear and tear is useful.
“The worst component for winter wear was the wheels!” says Dom Mason, who was at the forefront of the charge toward better all-weather riding options, designing several Kinesis framesets before creating Mason Cycles. “The aluminum rims, mixed with water, sand, road dirt and salt turned black and dissolved before your eyes.”
The winter wheels will be fitted with robust winter tires as Continental Gatorskins . A tire skimmer can be attached to the brakes to try to remove embedded flint fragments before they cause a puncture.
The winter bicycle weighed much more than the best bicycle and its weight could be supplemented by a saddle bag for a raincoat, food, spare hoses and the equipment needed to handle road repairs. With long, steady miles the order of the day for winter training, the extra weight wasn’t such a problem and made the return to the best bike more welcome once spring arrived.
New designs to meet riding in all seasons
Disc brakes and wide, tubeless tires mean that many “summer bikes” also make great “winter bikes.”
(Image credit: Mason)
Although winter cycling is still an option for cold weather riders, many modern bikes provide versatility that the best old school bikes did not have.
That started with the switch to disc brakes, which meant riding a decent set of wheels in the winter didn’t mean you’d have rims.
“Disc brakes gave consistent braking in all seasons, but also saved your wheels and meant you could run a better set of wheels all year round,” says Mason. “Modern groups are also quite durable if you keep them regularly clean. We have seen Ultegra Di2 and 105 Di2 be regularly specced for this type of bike because they are so reliable.”
Add to this wider, tubeless tires and you have grip and a degree of puncture protection that can offer a more reliable winter ride. It should be even more comfortable.
Disc brakes also allow modern bikes to provide much more frame space, some of which can be taken up by fenders/fenders. While absent in the past, many performance road bikes now include fender/fender accessories.
Mason continues: “Many modern road bikes are now running 28, which were considered big when we started designing our 4 Seasons bikes. But not all of them have all the gear, release and attachment points you need to call it “Winter Bike”.
Trek was the exception here, with its domain including fender mounts hidden since the mid-2010s. tea Synapse by Cannondale sprouted fender eyes in 2018. The Specialized Roubaix was one of the last hold-outs against fender eyes, but even that bike has on the last. Roubaix SL8 .
When you think about it, it’s crazy that so few bikes allow you to ride in relative comfort, on any but dry day.
Take it out of the way
(Image Credit: Future)
The trend towards all-season capabilities has been extended by all-road bikes and is reaching its pinnacle gravel bikes. Designed with wide tire clearance and fender/fender mounts, they both allow you to prepare for winter road travel as well as take on rougher trails.
“Many of our customers specify two sets of wheels, say 650b x 50mm for off-road duties and 700c x 38mm for all-season/all-condition road use,” says Mason.
“But there are also a lot of serious riders who want a dedicated fast road bike that they can ride all year round and that will take on very varied surface conditions with confidence. They don’t intend to go off-road and they don’t need a extra release and large volume tires, they might also want to run larger road chains and gears, so they go for one of our 4 Season or “All Road” models. , the Mason Resolution, Definition or new SLR”.
A thrashing on a dirt track can feel surprisingly satisfying, even in the most dire conditions, once you accept that you and your bike will come back wet and dirty. Off-road riding also tends to be more brisk than stable winter road riding, which can give you a better, higher intensity workout.
The other part of winter off-road is that the wear of parts can be extreme and there is a greater risk of mechanical failures from the accumulation of mud. Cleaning your bike regularly becomes even more of a necessity. Even with tubeless tires, you’re still more likely to get an unsealed puncture off-road than on-road.
Take it home
(Image Credit: Future)
It’s not just the versatility of modern bikes that has made winter cycling an endangered species; the sophistication of modern indoor training makes it an attractive alternative when the weather turns cold and wet.
While historically, take to the turbo trainer or rollers it was a lonely, masochistic experience to be avoided, a intelligent turbo The session can now be much more enjoyable, although the streak of self-inflicted pain is still there.
HA direct driving intelligent trainer it’s much more sophisticated than an old-school wheel trainer where you had to manually manipulate the resistance. Stick to one indoor training app like Zwift and you can scratch your competitive itch during the off-season, while options including Rouvy allow you to imagine a wet Saturday afternoon going to Alpe d’Huez.
Modern views on training ask for the concept that you need to put in basic kilometers to be ready even for the summer. High-intensity interval training and polarized training offer alternatives that can be more effective and are likely more time-efficient than the traditional basic miles of riding your winter bike.
Not that riding outside still has its place. A long, lower-intensity ride on a cold day can be a satisfying alternative to a short session at home and offer mental health benefits that an hour of blasting on the turbo can’t match.
Unless they have the money to buy a dedicated one exercise bike , for many riders, a second bike always mounted to a trainer is an advantage. What is an indoor bike? Weight, clearance and braking systems are not issues.
Some trainers don’t even have thru axle adapters, so a rim brake frame can be a plus. You don’t care about flashy components if you’re going to be drenched in sweat.
In fact, an indoor bike dedicated for use on a trainer has many of the same attributes as the old school winter bike. Only minus the fenders.
Does the increased versatility of “better” bikes make a dedicated winter bike obsolete?
“Yes,” says Dom Mason of Mason Cycles
Thinking back to when I started designing bikes in 2000, it occurs to me that I started trying to “kill the winter bike” from that point forward! I could not understand why a “Winter Bike” had to be heavy and with old or obsolete components – why was the rider expected to endure “extra suffering”?!
So I designed what we called “RacelightT” [T stood for ‘Training’ … as in ‘Winter Trainer’], It was a nice light alloy frameset with carbon fork, quite sporty geometry and worthy of a decent set of components. Riders started putting last year’s Ultegra and handling the bikes with a good set of wheels and I think that was the beginning of the “4 Season” bike, which is what we started calling it shortly after.
So yes, I would say that today’s “All Road” bikes do their old “Winter Trainer” jobs quite well, better in fact! As we didn’t have the luxury of disc brakes in those days. The disc brakes were an absolute game changer: we were trying to catch circles of fat black gunk around 28mm tires and “guards”, using long calipers with the blocks at the end of the slots.
Your latest blog post was truly inspiring and had some great insights. I can’t wait to see what else you have in store.
Your posts always provide me with a new perspective and encourage me to look at things differently Thank you for broadening my horizons
Your posts always provide me with a new perspective and encourage me to look at things differently Thank you for broadening my horizons
Your posts always provide me with a new perspective and encourage me to look at things differently Thank you for broadening my horizons
Your posts always provide me with a new perspective and encourage me to look at things differently Thank you for broadening my horizons