Is It Safe to Bike in the Snow?

Have you ever ridden your bicycle…..in the snow? Today, Beijing.

Expatriates maybe don’t talk much about transportation in their new locations, and yet it is a problem that we must address.  After almost 30 years overseas, we have never personally owned a car at our locations. At times our organization has provided us with a vehicle: a diesel Izusu pickup in Zambia, a pool of cars in Ecuador and Senegal, a 2 motor scooter in Taiwan. Beijing has an excellent metro and bus system, but you need to walk miles just to access the stops and between metro stops. For us, our bicycles are a life saver. Even with my hip being so painful, I can bike. Well, this morning when we were ready to head out for a meeting, it was SNOWING.  It has certainly been cold enough to snow within the past few months, but Beijing is almost Gobi desert dry. The only rain we have truly seen was our second day when we arrived in August, and we walked the 2 miles to church and back in a downpour. So today do we bike? Do we walk? Is it dangerous? We biked, and it was OK. It was not sticking and even now at the end of the meeting hours later, it still is not sticking, so there is no ice and we decided except that my hair got soaked, it is OK. One more problem addressed.