Wowee, that's quite a ride. Up Hooter's Hill after work? O my. ouch. Cheers to you, Doo - you are a better man than me, for sure!

This is a neat idea. What a lovely ride you have -- I think you'd be pretty horrified by the amount of traffic and the rough shape of the roads here. Sometimes I swear I'm going to bite off my own tongue one day. I envy you for all those wide, flat, non-potholeriffic roads!

Also, I drool at the obvious lack of hills -- though I'm not sure what's worse, a constant steep up-and-down like here, or that one long low-grade hill you said you take on the way home. (At least you're going home, so it doesn't matter if you're sweaty afterwards.)

Jealous, though -- I haven't had the heart to give up biking for the year but my ride is currently locked in front of my house, buried seat-high in a snowdrift. I think it's time to admit defeat and bring it in.

I think more hills wouldn't be a bad thing, but having relatively flat terrain made getting back on my bike easier this year after a long, long layoff.

That said, we were visiting my in-laws in hilly upstate New York this summer. I used to routinely ride around in those hills on a Sear Free Spirit 10-speed and never thought twice about it. Now I look at those hills with disbelief that I ever did!

If you really want to do some winter riding, loiseau, check out BikeForums.net. They have a whole subforum dedicated to winter riding.