Aside from all the actual winter sports, I have completed my first winter of honest-to-godness cycling season. Yes, yes, I cycled in winter in the previous years but it was very provisional and rarely more than one day in a month. Here are my round trip numbers for this winter:

December:3
January: 4
February: 3
March: 5

Not a lot but multiple times more than before.

And here are some of the parameters:

Equipment:
Dedicated witnerbike was the gamechanger for me. This bike is a tank. Did you know that the galvanised chain came standard?

Weather:
My rule of thumb was that the forecast needs to be promising single digits (negative, of course) in the afternoon. This was a very cold winter so we did not get too many days like that. Fortunately, the severe cold made sure that there was a lot of snow but no lumpy ice on the road because ice usually forms during freeze-thaw cycles.

It was important to keep hands and face warm. I was usually wearing only a merino undershirt under my coat because I would heat up too much during the ride. I don’t know if I would brave colder weather next year.

Traffic:
The secret to March Road is to avoid it during rush hour. If I could clear it before 7:30 in the morning or 4:00 in the afternoon, the traffic was no issue whatsoever. The “special driver” comes out in rush hour along with million other vehicles. The ride becomes too big an ordeal to be bothered with. I missed a few days of cycling because I did not manage to get out of the house early enough.

The City:
The bike lanes are not cleared in the winter so we are relying on sun and traffic to thaw them. It works to some extent but it would be much, much nicer if the snow plow swung a bit to the right every once in a while.