Thanks, Anto. Y'know, there are even a few cyclists out & about. Used to be that the winter hardcore riders used bikes with narrow tires to cut through the snow to the tarmac/whatever below. Some riders still use that approach but now, more & more people use the fat-tired 29ers. Days like today are not too bad, as the cold temp means that there isn't too much slush about, even with the salt added to the roads. Winter weather really messes up derailleurs, though.
The snow-clearing apparatus is a whole sub-culture in itself. Some years back, a friend moved to Ottawa from Vancouver, and from his downtown apartment window, he used to watch the snow-clearing ploughs and trucks at night -- he'd never seen such things in Vancouver. It's not uncommon for the snow to last well into April in the hills across the river -- and then, sometimes within a couple of weeks, it melts enough to start cycling again, so we're skiing in early April and cycling by the end of the month. Springtime can be very rapid and dramatic -- the saying is that we have two months of March, and then go right into July.
If you haven't grown up with it, the winter can be dangerous, but the change of seasons can be magnificent too: it's not just that the leaves, etc., change colour--the whole landscape changes. When you see a picture like the one I just took, it's hard to imagine the same scene six months later. Below is my old AJS, sold last June to finance my Raven.
