Now my bikes don't get stolen anymore in Flanders (even though I use a much cheaper and more convenient frame lock).
About the weather, I just wear warm clothes. I'm about ten minutes away from my children's school, not 2 hours. It rarely gets lower than -5°C though (23°F).
It also works because we have decent cycling infrastructure so cars don't kill too many cyclists.
I'm not an avid cyclist or an avid automobilist but I sometimes have to drive the same route by car and I have never wished I was in a car rather than in a bike including under rain, while the other way around is almost every time.