[Fat Charlie]

Yeah, the north winter isn't EOC weather.

Like California98Civic was saying, there's a big difference between bump starting and popping the clutch. If you can engage the disc brakes smoothly, I'm sure you'll be working the clutch just fine in no time.

Get yourself an SG or UG and you'll see how much gliding (on or off) works, the difference is incredible. In town is made for P&G: you just said that you get up to speed and have to stop, you just need to work it to your advantage. Decelerating in gear puts you in DFCO. Dropping into neutral lets you keep going, slowing a bit, at maybe a couple hundred mpg (that's where the gauges come in). Working with any slight hills can help you maximize this.

I do some horrible bumper to bumper traffic. Yes, working a clutch is a lot of work, but so is riding the brakes like everyone else is doing. But by tapping myself along I'm burning a lot less gas and not wearing my brakes at all, and by doing it well I'm not wearing the clutch either- my last car lived and died on that commute and stood up to some serious thrashing before I came here, and it went away at 205k (207k? Don't remember exactly) miles with its original clutch.

Do you have your grille blocked? That works wonders with warmup time.