On the relative lateness of Spring this year

Bicycling on Tuesday was a little surreal. While the streets were quite clear of snow, there is still a lot of snow around. Despite the snow, there are a lot of bikes out. Somehow, it looks wrong. I would like to submit this shot taken at McGill to demonstrate.
I mean, the scene looks rather like winter, until you see the not inconsiderable number of bikes locked to the railing. I guess the reality is that Spring, in the sense of the start of the biking season, is relatively late this year. I had the strange revelation that it is nearly mid-April, and I have hardly been on the bike. Last year, I was getting ready for the expedition to Santiago de Compostela that began on the first Sunday in May!

I have made the trip between Montreal and North Hatley by bus three times this week. Each time, I have noticed that I spend a certain amount of time looking at the landscape through a cyclist's eyes. That is, I am trying to judge what it would be like to travel through the varied terrain on a bike. While I have biked between Montreal and North Hatley on two occasions, I know I can still learn more about the shape of the land. Maybe another way of putting it is that I am trying to calibrate my sense of the land as it applies to biking.