March, 2013:

Despite periods of relatively mild weather and a few out-and-out beautiful, sunny days, the current winter has been challenging in its day-to-day extremes, with the coldest days often following the warmest days.  If this was your first midwest winter on the bike, congratulations, you're now ready for anything!

_______

Thanks to all the volunteers, vendors, speakers, and attendees who helped make the March 9 Chicago Bike Swap, presented by Active Transportation Alliance and benefitting Bike Winter, a success.

Active Transportation Alliance is looking for feedback specifically from those who attended the swap (there is another survey being sent directly to vendors.)  Please go here and help make the event better:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/58K7GZJ

_______

Although more snow, cold, ice, and various other winter weather goodies may be still to come, one of many signs that spring is not far off is the annual Bike Winter Art Show, which will culminate with a fashion show and closing party on Friday March 15:

Chicago Bike Winter Fashion Show
Friday, March 15, 2013, 6:00pm until 11:45pm
C Haus, 1617 N. Drake Avenue

The closing party for the 16th Chicago Bike Winter Art Show will be
hosted by C Haus, a new exhibition/event space located in Humboldt
Park. C Haus is the perfect venue for the Bike Winter Fashion Show. We
are stoked Rapid Transit Cycleshop & Friends* are producing the
fashion show again for the 4th year in a row, and we will provide
space for local designers to sell bike fashion and jewelry.

Folks are cooking up a huge batch of chili and cornbread, so come early, grab a bowl, and check out the bike art exhibit. 

Zigtebra will open the show at 8pm with a short
musical, "The Red Pony Play". 

The fashion show will follow, and DJs
will have us dancing the night out.

* Special thanks to BikeWinter.org for annual funding, and West Town
Bikes for continued support. Fashion Showproduced by Rapid Transit
Cycleshop, Ciclo Urbano, Boulevard Bikes, and Poly Golightly.

_______

We are pleased to introduce our 2013 Bike Winter blogger Katie, and look forward to seeiing how she adapts to the challenge of all-season cycling.

Scroll down to "BICICLE BEGINNER" and click over to say "hi!"

True to our usual fall tradition, we have been working to plump up the Bike Winter event calendar with events.

Point your browser to http://bikewinter.org/events and pull up your city.

At the bottom, there is an "Add an Event" link-- please be part of the Bike Winter effort and help out by adding anything and everything you are aware of, including and especially your own events, of interest to year-round cyclists in your area.

Thanks!

Our target date for 2013 Bike Winter Sticker distribution was the big 15th Anniversary Chicago Critical Mass ride on September 28, and thanks to your help we passed out close to 1500 stickers!

Thanks to unprecedented participation we had no less than 16 candidates for the final design. We are grateful to all who participated and hope to see some great designs updated and resubmitted for next year's competition.

Congratulations to Allison Rose for the winning design!

For an indeterminate amount of time, although the poll is closed, all of the entries can be viewed here:

http://massup.us/poll

The colder months are an important time to make sure there's plenty of opportunity to break out of hibernation mode and enjoy the company of others, so think about what events you want to help organize. Are you crafty? Host a fleece cutting party to help with gator and balaclava production. On the sidebar to the left, there's a link to our list of events. Events will be added regularly, so check back often.  And feel free to add your own!

If you are in Chicago, get involved and stay in touch via the Bike Winter listserv, the BW Chainlink group, or by contacting us. People in Madison should check out their Facebook page. And feel free to help keep Bike Winter rolling via our Paypal donation page.

We love this photo of Lorena Cupcake posted on The Chainlink by Archie from whateverland.com. Cheer beats chill!