I made it thru a very difficult winter of riding/commuting in Silver Spring, MD. We set a record for the inches of snow for all time in our area. I missed a couple of days of work and got a ride in the car on another day. I have pictures of my area during the storm at www.mohrnet.com/winter2010.htm. There are shots of lots of snow. There are some of my normal bike route. The trail became impassable by bike with or without studded tires. We had 2 feet of snow on the ground for a long while. There was very little drifting fortunately. Many large trees and limbs came down across the road. I live near a parkway and trees blocked a lane of traffic in a couple of spots for weeks. It was somewhat dangerous to ride. For a long time the plowed route on the parkway only revealed half of one lane and the other lane had the benefit of the shoulder being exposed. This made abiding by painted line restrictions impossible. Motorists were actually very accommodating for the most part. For about 2 weeks I had to travel on major arteries to get to work. For over a week even those major thoroughfares lost at least half a lane each way to snow blockage. It was hard to portray my cycle routes because the road was so narrow I was afraid to stop and take pictures. I rode my Bridgestone MB-5 with the Xtracycle most of the time. I almost bought studded tires, but my wife had lost her job so finances were just too tight. Thursday and Friday after the biggest snow I rode in to work when many didn't even drive. Thursday I was at work at 8:30am. There was very little traffic on the street even on the thoroughfares.

Early in the winter there was a 4 or 5" snowfall and I took a couple kids out for a ride on the Xtracycle. It was a ball. We ended up falling. After we got up I asked if they wanted to go back home and they said 'no' unanimously. Each snowfall we got I expected that would be the last of it as is the pattern in this area.