This is the third and final part of this mini-series about starting to cycle for transportation. Links to part 1 and 2 are in the next paragraph.
Whenever the topic of bike lanes come up in Ottawa, you’ll get someone saying it’s too cold, too snowy (Part 1), too big, or too hilly (Part 2). But most of the people making these excuses have never even tried riding for transportation even when none of those reasons apply, on the best possible day. So if you are bike-curious, and you’re up for a challenge, that’s how I think you should start.
You can bike for transportation. The way to start is to try it when it’s easy.
My challenge to you
If you’ve never biked for transportation, you’re unlikely to start now, even though yesterday (November 4th, 2026) was well over 20 degrees. You might even think it’s silly that I’m cycling on typical November mornings where it’s around or below freezing, like it is was a week or two ago. At this point, I’d suggest you set a goal now that you’ll return to in spring 2027, after all the winter snow has melted.
Pick the right day
Next spring, pick a sunny day when it’s 20 to 25 degrees, so you can wear comfortable shorts and a normal shirt. Pick a trip when you need to travel about 2 km or less, so the trip itself is only around 5 minutes. Ideally, this first trip should be one where you don’t need to carry anything, or what you do need fits in a backpack, so you can do it with the bike you already have. Say you need a haircut, it’s the middle of June, and the barber is 2 km away. The bike paths or lanes that are available on the way play a huge part in your comfort too, so you should be going somewhere you can get taking only quiet streets or paths.
I promise that if this is something you want to try, you’ll be glad you got started. That single trip gives you a baseline: “I can cycle for transportation in these conditions.” And if you have the right kind of bike, on the right kind of route, these trips are a joy. My experiences cycling through my community have been filled with nature and fresh air, joy and surprise, and getting to know lots of my neighbours.
How I got here
For me, cycling has always been about getting places. I grew up in Calgary and biked everywhere. School and my first job were within a few kilometres. My second job in high school was quite a bit further, but I biked there too because I’d gotten used to cycling for transportation with shorter, easier trips. What that has meant for my life was that I only decided to get my full driver’s license in my mid 20s, and I’ve been able to choose to never have a driving commute. This isn’t specifically because I love cycling, though I do enjoy it, I cycle because of what it unlocks for me.
I’ve had a few different kinds of bikes over the course of my life (mountain, road bike, hybrid), and I’ve ridden them all for transportation even if that’s not exactly what they were made for. In 2024, I made the leap and got an electric cargo bike, and it’s exactly what I need to get around, so that’s what I ride everywhere now. The cargo bike is effectively our second family car. This choice has saved my family thousands of dollars a year, as we haven’t needed to buy a second vehicle for that once in a while we could use it.
On my bikes, I’ve never raced anyone or chased a personal best. When I ride fast, it’s to get somewhere sooner. Cycling, for me, is a way to get around while spending time with people, getting fresh air outdoors, and getting some exercise along the way.
I’ve always been the kind of person who will just ride anywhere, in traffic if I need to, which has been often in Calgary and Ottawa where I’ve lived. When I was younger, it was just what I did, I wasn’t arguing or advocating for anything. I was just biking. As I’ve gotten older and now have kids of my own who love to bike, I’ve begun to advocate for everyone else to have what I have always felt, the freedom to get anywhere by bike. Having safe and protected cycling infrastructure lets anybody of all ages and abilities do that without the inherent risk of riding in mixed traffic.
The right kind of bike
If you have it in your city, the simplest way to try cycling on the easiest day is via bike share. A bike-share bike is almost always built for exactly this kind of riding. It isn’t trying to get you there as fast as possible, though it can help, especially if it’s equipped with an electric-assist motor. Bike-share bikes typically have you seated in an upright position, and are usually fairly comfortable to ride. They’re perfect for trips of a few kilometres, and normally include somewhere to put a bag. When I used bike share in Toronto a couple of years ago, I strapped my things down in the basket with the built-in elastic straps, and rode across downtown.
Ottawa hasn’t had bike share since a very limited pilot a number of years ago. I do work with Bike Ottawa, who with Ecology Ottawa are calling for a first phase of bike share in 2027, check out ottawabikeshare.ca. Bike share is great for short trips when you don’t have your own bike with you. It’s also great for trip chaining, which means stringing several stops together in one outing. You might walk one leg of your journey and take the bus for another, so you don’t want to be tied to your own bike. With bike share, you drop it at a station or bus stop, and keep going.
If you’re buying your own bike for getting around, I highly recommend getting one shaped like a bike share bike: upright, comfortable, with somewhere to carry things. I’m looking for a Dutch-style bike myself, as a second bike for short trips when a cargo bike is more than I need. They’re hard to find at a good price here, because only a few companies sell them new in Canada and most are imported. But bikes in general aren’t that expensive, especially compared with the cost of driving. An incredible bike can be yours for $1000-$2000, and good ones can be found used for a few hundred.
Where to start in Orléans
In Orléans, there are a few good places to start with your easiest possible ride, but most explicit cycling routes are not well connected for now, and often compromise on cycling safety to make driving easier. Safe cycling routes in Orleans typically just mean park paths and quiet residential streets. Some newer neighbourhoods in the east end of Orleans even have wide asphalt path-style sidewalks, which are a great way to let people walk and cycle safely together off roads. In a few cases though, specific changes or improvements to road designs are a straightforward way to make safe cycling easier.
For example, the south end of Belcourt Boulevard has a modal filter, a barrier that lets bikes and people walking pass by, but stops cars from cutting through. That said, Belcourt is still a wide street where people drive too fast, but with no through traffic it’s quieter than most other similar routes.
The Highway 174 overpass on Jeanne d’Arc Boulevard has new real, separated bike lanes, plus a nearby roundabout built with cycling in mind. But it isn’t perfect for getting across the highway: you still have to cross two slip lanes, the right-turn lanes that let cars turn onto on- and off-ramps without slowing or stopping. This is some of the best cycling infrastructure we have at the moment in Orléans, but most quiet residential streets are also perfect safe cycling routes for these kind of short trips.
Then push the line a little
Let’s talk about what happens after you’ve ridden on the best possible day, once you have your baseline and you know you can do it. If you’re anything like me, you start to wonder what else you can do. “If I can ride when it’s 25 and sunny, maybe I can ride when it’s cloudy.” Maybe I can go 4 or 5 km. Maybe I can put on a sweater and ride at 15 degrees. Maybe a millimetre of rain is fine, or I can wear a jacket. If I’ve been riding from June to mid-September, maybe I can keep going into October, or November.
That’s exactly how it went for me. I started on sunny, nice days. Then when it got down to 10 degrees, I asked myself why I was stopping. I could probably go until it was 5. A couple of millimetres of rain? I’d wear a raincoat, and it turns out you don’t get that wet, because the air moving past you helps to dry you off. A dusting of snow this morning? “I could probably ride in that too.”
Once you decide this is something you can do, and want to do, it’s easy to keep going, and to stop setting arbitrary limits for yourself.
Honestly, this whole process really only takes two things. First, you have to *want* to try, to actually have the desire to get out there. Second, you have to try it when conditions are good, so you can find out that you actually enjoy it (which I can almost guarantee you will). That may mean getting a new bike, or getting a first bike, which again should probably be a bike-share-shaped bike if that’s why you’re doing this. Your own personal rationale for trying doesn’t have to be about the environment or exercise or any single particular reason. It can just be about replacing a few car trips to save some money on gas, or putting off buying a second family vehicle.
You don’t have to do the hard trips
The other thing you always hear is: “I’m not taking my kids to hockey practice by bike in January when it’s minus 20.” Nobody is asking you to. Even on the nicest day, unless you have a trailer or cargo bike, a giant hockey bag is a pretty compelling reason to drive. That’s not to say it can’t be done (I’m tempted to say “Challenge Accepted”, to be honest), but the point of learning to cycle for transportation isn’t about biking for every trip.
(This tells you a lot about me, but as a kid I used to take the bus to go golfing, clubs and all. I don’t golf anymore, but if I did, I’d think about bussing first.)
Riding for the easy trips doesn’t mean you have to ride for the hard ones: the trips that just don’t work, or where your young child wants to come along and it’s too far, or too windy or too cold. Do the easy trips. Then the slightly harder trips start to feel within reach. Eventually, like me, you stop worrying so much about the weather. Maybe you buy a spare set of bike tires, or even a cheaper second bike just for winter.
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Bike when it’s easy
That’s the whole secret: bike when it’s easy. Once you see how easy it is when it’s easy, you can try it when it’s a little harder. If you like it, you’ll do it more. And if you want, eventually you can ride all winter, or what I used to think of as “hard mode”. Even that isn’t really so hard. The hardest part is whether anyone has cleared the roads and paths.
It starts with deciding to try, and not worrying about doing the hardest thing first.
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