adam,
I live near Edinburgh - Scotland, retired now, I like to ride my Thorn eXp round the local lanes and sometimes come back fully laden (30kgs) with the family food shopping. Longer trips happen occasionally when I go cycle camping in the UK.
The focus here is the extended cold and snowy weather. I have winter tyres on my bike which are good for ice and packed level snow, but just now it is too deep for me. One of my sons tried mountain biking last week near Peebles, but the snow was 1 foot deep at the top of the run and it was just unridable.
julian