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Comment by haileys | Hacker News Reader

84 Wh is enough to propel a human on a bicycle about 20 km in about one hour. From this perspective electric cars are ludicrously inefficient ways to get around. Maybe in the future we'll view car dependency as similarly wasteful to using incandescent bulbs everywhere.

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Bicycles are something like 99% efficient though so anything will look ludicrously inefficient compared to them.

Have you cycled in the rain or snow? If yes how many times?

Periodically I see colleagues trying to come at work by bicycle. The longest lasting record is one and half year. All the others didn't last after the summer.

Fwiw it would take me 1h of walking to go to work or about 1h20 if I take a couple buses. Or I can take the car and be done in less than 10 minutes.

This is less about the winter and more about the lack of appropriate biking infrastructure. [0]

[0]: Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter, but Finnish people can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

I think it's mostly about culture and infrastructure. When we lived in Southern Germany, I cycled to work literally 5 days a week for three years (22-25 km per day, depending on the route), yes also when was snowing or raining. I still use cycling as the only means of transportation to the office, but with WFH it's currently only 2-3 days per week. I live in The Netherlands again, where cycling is one of the primary forms of transportation.

Rain: I use rain pants and waterproof jacket/shoes. Snow: bike lanes are cleared, though I did regularly cycle on snowy roads in Germany when they were not cleared yet. Tires with some profile and experience make it very doable.

Honestly, I was with you on the weather aspect. I do go to work daily, rain or shine ... it sucks to drive in the rain and I was lucky to go full HO during a bad winter, but overall it's perfect workable (in central Germany).

But then you wrote that you walk just 1h to work ... That can't be more than 20 minutes by bike. (My commute is 30 minutes by foot, 15 by car, 1:30h public transport... But due to the road layout it takes me just 10 minutes on average by bike.)

I drove to work for 10 years, although I did skip winter season, riving on ice is NOT fun

> Fwiw it would take me 1h of walking to go to work or about 1h20 if I take a couple buses. Or I can take the car and be done in less than 10 minutes.

That's kinda the problem. Even here with pretty good infrastructure car is 50 minutes in peak traffic, metro + walk to metro station + few stops of tram is 1h. If I go like 2h after peak it's 35 minutes...

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