A reasonably substantial snowfall overnight made my errands downtown – grabbing a copy of the Sunday paper and dropping by the office – a little challenging. 

The residential streets were unplowed and in the immediate aftermath of storms I’m not keen on using the main arterials to get to the LRT station, so I wound up using rack-and-roll to get to my office. Downtown residential streets had been plowed so I was able to ride side streets and cycling infra to the newsstand. The ride home was a bit more challenging with accumulation at the shoulder of the downtown arterials. Once I got to the main MUP it was well cleared, but when I left the path in my neighbourhood the residential streets were unrideable, so I had a few hundred meters of hoofing it.

Natalie and I moved to this neighbourhood as a carless young couple years ago for access to transit. Having the rack-and-roll option all winter – a recent initiative by our transit provider – that’s only gotten better. I can always bail on a ride and wind up close to most of the destinations to which I travel. I miss my scooter though – it goes away for the winter.

There’s no big payoff to the ride video. The 360 camera gave me some nice sustained views of the snowy Parliament Buildings. I think had I known how greasy it would be downtown and how challenging it would be to ride the last few hundred meters I would have just plunked my bike on the LRT – but it was a good way to find my legs again after a prolonged break from the office.