{"id":794515,"date":"2026-07-12T00:51:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T00:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/794515\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T00:51:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T00:51:18","slug":"cost-conscious-canberra-cyclists-continue-bracing-against-winters-chill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/794515\/","title":{"rendered":"Cost-conscious Canberra cyclists continue bracing against winter’s chill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every year, winter sees many Canberrans hanging up their helmets, despite the city being considered Australia’s “cycling capital”.<\/p>\n

This year, though, cyclist numbers have remained relatively steady, even as the mercury drops.<\/p>\n

Public servant Candice is among those who show no intention of slowing down.<\/p>\n

“I’m an all-year-round cyclist,” she said.<\/p>\n

But even she admits that the winter months are tricky.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Public servant Candice says she wears what it takes to maintain cycling to work in winter. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

“If it’s below -1C or -2C, I generally have no feeling in my hands,” she said.<\/p>\n

She says that with all the gear she wears to stay warm, she “probably looks a bit like a snowman”.<\/p>\n

Between a puffer jacket, gloves and a balaclava, she does what it takes to make it through winter.<\/p>\n

For Candice, cycling is purely a method of transport. She says she is “definitely a commuter cyclist”.<\/p>\n

“I don’t really cycle for leisure. I cycle as a means of getting from one place to another,” she said.<\/p>\n

She decided to start cycling to work when her workplace introduced paid parking.<\/p>\n

Since then, she thinks she has cycled about 2,500 kilometres each year.<\/p>\n

“You’re not only saving money from parking, but there’s also the wear and tear on your car,” Candice said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

In rain and chilly weather, Canberra commuters tend to hang up their helmets and reach for their car keys. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

A ‘positive way to get to school’<\/p>\n

Candice is not the only person enjoying getting out on their bike this winter.<\/p>\n

Every Wednesday, a group of children in Canberra’s north form the Downer Bike Bus to cycle to Lyneham Primary together.<\/p>\n

They started earlier this year after Downer local Haydn’s daughter saw another bike bus arrive at Lyneham Primary and was disappointed it did not pass through her area.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Downer Bike Bus takes a pre-planned route to Lyneham Primary School, picking up more children as it goes. (ABC News: Lish Fejer)<\/p>\n

Bike buses allow groups of children to ride to school together under adult supervision.<\/p>\n

They ride a set route through a school’s catchment area, picking up children as they go, like a bus.<\/p>\n

With some help from the organisers of the existing Lyneham Bike Bus, Haydn got the Downer version up and running.<\/p>\n

He sees the bike bus as a “really positive way to get to school”.<\/p>\n

“Kids are enthusiastic about getting out the door to go to school and that’s not always the case,” Haydn said.\"The<\/p>\n

Canberra has more than 1,000 kilometres of bike paths.<\/p>\n

This enthusiasm is helped by the large speaker Haydn has attached to the front of his bike. It plays a selection of all the children’s favourite songs for the journey.<\/p>\n

Haydn believes that the sustainability of cycling is “a flip-side benefit” to just getting kids outside and active, having fun.<\/p>\n

“For us, it’s really about establishing healthy habits in young people,” he said.<\/p>\n

And he hopes others are not daunted by the idea of starting a bike bus of their own, saying he hopes they realise “it’s pretty easy.”<\/p>\n

Canberrans dusting off bikes from storage<\/p>\n

But children and dedicated cyclists are not the only ones willingly hopping on their bikes in chilly temperatures.<\/p>\n

Bike shops across Canberra have seen a smaller drop-off of cyclists than normal going into winter.<\/p>\n

Chris Baylis, who owns a bike shop in Canberra’s inner north, said there was” always a little bit of a dip in winter”, but that “this year’s dip has been much less than in previous years”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Chris Baylis says he’s seen Canberrans picking up cycling again, sometimes using bikes that have been sitting in storage. (ABC News: Tobias Ostini)<\/p>\n

He has also seen a big increase in people looking for affordable riding options \u2014 particularly people wanting to get old bikes back into a rideable condition.<\/p>\n

He said he had seen people “picking it [cycling] up again, with a bike that’s been in storage for a long time”.<\/p>\n

Many of the bikes are easy fixes and “just need that massage”, he said.<\/p>\n

On top of his own shop, Mr Baylis also runs bicycle maintenance classes for Pedal Power, which he said had been growing in popularity.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got a lot of people who want to keep their cost of maintenance down,” he said.<\/p>\n

And he said a lot of those showing up to the workshops could be described as “people who weren’t traditional cyclists”.<\/p>\n

\"Bikes<\/p>\n

Classes on how to maintain and repair your own bike have been growing in popularity. (ABC News: Tobias Ostini)<\/p>\n

He partially attributes this rise in cycling popularity to concerns about fuel, saying he has “had some people scared about fuel availability into the future”.<\/p>\n

He also believes more people are just being cost-conscious due to a general increase in the cost of living.<\/p>\n

Alongside older bikes, Mr Baylis has also seen an uptick in e-assisted bike purchases<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He said e-bikes could be more appealing for non-traditional cyclists, as some models were designed specifically for commuting.<\/p>\n

“At about the $2,000 price mark, you can get something very reliable,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every year, winter sees many Canberrans hanging up their helmets, despite the city being considered Australia’s “cycling capital”.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,70263,2667,2610,784,85,16962],"class_list":["post-794515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bikes","tag-canberra","tag-cost-of-living","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}