God bless all of you bicyclists.

And you walkers and bus waiters and T riders.

Maybe you can’t afford a car, or maybe you could but don’t want to spend the money. Or maybe you are just really committed in a hardcore way to not having any sort of carbon footprint. Whatever your reasons and beliefs, you’ve been out there through this long, cold winter, day and night (the smarter among you with bike lights and reflective clothing), pedaling your butts off and making those off us in our salt-covered (though well-heated) cars feel both thankful and guilty for opting to choose the desire for creature comforts over concerns about climate change.

How did you do it? How did you manage, seriously, to get around when the streets were icy, the sidewalks half-heartedly shoveled and the plowed (and plowed and replowed) piles of snow obstructing your view as you edged out from street corners to make your turns?

Maybe you’re searching for sarcasm here, but it’s really sincere admiration.

And that extends to the walkers, too, and to all of you who waited for the bus in the cold like some character from a plane-gone-down-in-the-mountains movie.

Thankfully, however, Somerville has a lot of great places to grab a bite, no matter what your income, so it never had to get to a Donner Party sort of situation.

Or at least we hope. We’d like to think we would have at least gotten some sort of email from the police if it had.

All of you are already warmed up and stretched out. Us wimpy winter drivers will need to do some serious prep work before we think about taking a walk or getting on that bike.

Whether you’ve been out there all along or are just starting to think abut checking to see if the chain needs oil or the tire needs air, rest assured, it’s almost over. Spring is coming.

Or at least that’s what the calendar says.