Former courier and current adventure-racing pro Nico Deportago-Cabrera is no stranger to cold-weather cycling, having spent many years exposed to the Windy City’s big chill. Read on to enjoy Indigo Nico’s thoughts on navigating the annual inevitability of riding through winter.
What’s your relationship with winter?
Winter for me is a reminder that all things have a cycle. If a year was a day, it would be Midnight.
My relationship with cycling, and I suppose with Winter, really began when I started working as a bike messenger in Chicago. Living here, we all deal with it. But as a messenger you cannot escape it.
It can either be your enemy or you can make it your ally, but it takes some time to figure out how.
How do you prepare for a winter ride?
There are a few different definitions of winter here… sometimes it can be sunny and 30°F below or sometimes it can be 35°F and raining. Regardless of conditions, having gear that will keep you warm and dry is the difference between love and hate. Usually for me, it starts with my feet and hands. No matter what is going on elsewhere, if you can’t keep your feet and hands warm and dry, it isn’t going to go well. The Fizik Tempo Artica GTX shoes don’t seem to mind the cold, the wet, or the cold and wet, so they are the first piece of kit I go for. My track bike might be the second. As sketchy as it may sound, the added control of a fixed gear keeps me confident when the roads are icy or torn up from winter’s toll. Also track bikes, they’re the best.
How was being a bike messenger during Chicago’s winter?
I remember my first winter as a messenger had a 10-day stretch where the high was 7 below zero. In an industry where people came and went so often, getting through the winter months was like a rite of passage. I was another faceless rookie going into December, and by the end of March, I was part of the family. We often measured our time on the road by how many winters we had worked, and by the time I retired my radio it had been 13 of them.
Words by Nico Deportago-Cabrera
Photo – Dennis Peralta
