272: How Cycling Through Winter Can Connect You to Nature (Jessica Cherry, writer, editor and climate scientist)

Author: Amy Bushatz
Published: Thu 02 Feb 2023
Episode Link: https://www.humansoutside.com/podcasts/jessica-cheery-humans-outside-podcast

The deep, cold, dark winter of the north is a unique experience that both challenges and inspires. On the one hand, it shows you things about nature and about yourself you'd never see in the long hours of warmer daylight. On the other, it carried a depth that at times feels insurmountable.

Among the winter enthusiasts and survivors are cyclists, people out there riding their bikes through, on and over the ice. They are part of a rich history of people not just exploring the Arctic under their own power, but leaning into the experience despite all the odds. In today’s episode writer and editor Jessica Cherry talks about the experience of cycling through Alaska’s winter. Listen now.

Some of the good stuff:

[2:56] Jessica Cherry’s favorite outdoor space

[3:45] How Jessica became someone who likes to go outside

[6:21] Jessica’s personal connection to cycling

[9:42] What is a “fat bike?” [17:01] About Frank Soos

[18:58] The experience of recreating over winter in the arctic

[21:01] The surprising sound factor

[24:56] What people miss by not going outside in the winter’s darkness

[28:36] How being a climate scientist changes how Jessica experiences nature

[33:09] What Jessica learned from her book, Wheels on Ice

Connect with this episode:

Read Wheels on Ice, edited by Jessica Cherry and Frank Soos