You certainly have to get fenders to keep it going. I left Vancouver 20 years ago but I commuted from my home in New Westminster (Massey Heights/Crest Shopping Centre area) to our office in either Downtown Vancouver or out in Richmond.

Fenders and you can keep going pretty much all year in Vancouver. You guys have all sorts of nice trails now that didn't exist when I was still there. Trip to downtown for me back then was down Cariboo to Government, out by the old Dairyland plant and then up by Broadway to North Burnaby school and down Hastings to around the PNE, scootch over to the waterfront and down Commissioner to hook up at Burrard.