The snow was not an issue for riding today. It was a beautiful dry powder that poofed away from the wheels as it was driven through.
The ice was not the issue for riding either. The ice under the snow was a non issue. Studded tires take care of that rather thoroughly and render ice under snow a non issue when handled correctly.
No.
The issue was with the City of Kitchener. You see, the city maintains the trails in the winter. I am very grateful for this, and appreciate it. Without doing that, the trails would soon become an unpassable mess. The issue I have with the city is their love affair with crystalized salt. They dump the crap everywhere. So, when you plow the surface of several days of flash frozen ice and dump a huge amount of salt over it and then add a bunch of snow on top, you end up with 5 to 10 cm of cracking apart ice, slush, and snow which shifts under the wheels, sticks to everything, and uses up about double or triple the energy. It is also hard to walk on.
I would rather ride on hard packed snow.
It is pretty here though - however, by the weekend, we should have had three days of above zero temperatures and won't have any snow left.