Winter Bike Festival in St. John's aims to get cyclists on the trails during the cold season

While winter and cycling might not go together for some people, it's the perfect match for winter biking enthusiasts in St. John's.

About 30 of them came together for the Pippy Park Winter Bike Festival on Sunday.

The event was organized by Bicycle Newfoundland and Labrador, the province's sporting association for cycling.

Ryan Green, one of the association's directors, says it is "a celebration of winter cycling in St. John's."

"You might think of biking as biking on the road, biking on the street, which I maybe wouldn't recommend in St. John's in the winter," said Green.

"But the trails, especially here in Pippy Park, we have volunteer groomers that groom all the trails. So, it's a really nice smooth surface and it's fantastic for biking."

Green said while the festival had been held successfully in the past, it was paused for the last three years. Now, the association is hoping to grow both the event and the winter biking community in the province.

"There's a lot of people that are involved in winter biking here, so there's potential to make it quite big," he said.

"Every year, we see more and more people out on the trails .... People are catching on. And once people try it, they're kind of hooked at that point. They continue doing it every year."

While most participants of the event came on their fat bikes, which work on both snow and ice, Green said some also hit the trails on their mountain bikes.

Whatever the type of bike, he said one of the aspects of winter cycling that attracts people to the sport is the positive impact it has on both physical and mental health.

"It's a long winter. There's not a lot going on sometimes as compared to the summer months. And it's really nice to have an outlet to be able to get