Winter Cycling - snow types and depths

this is my first year of commuting to and from work and its only a short 6 mile round trip with rolling hills at best, but mainly flat. i usually ride one of my cruisers to/from work cuz i love the simplicity of the ss cruisers and its my thing.

everything changed when while at work the other day it began to snow and i am on a cruiser. luckily it had low gears, fenders for the wet roads and fat white walls with that universal cruiser knobbie tread. had absolutly no problem getting home. now i have riden in snow before and i know when it gets deeper i will switch to my mountain bike (cheap ***, but has low gears and aggresive knobbie tires) but with it's full suspension, i will also loose my fenders.

bottom line, how deep of snow can u expect to be ab;e to ride in, asuming i have low enogh gearing? the snow we get here is usually wet, so wet and so heavy. wider tires for bettre floatation or narrower tires to cut thru? they would have to be in the 26" variation. will studded tires just help with ice or will they help me ride thru snow? 4"+ of wet snow? thanks.

I'm usually good for 4-5 inches fresh ontop of whatever came before. More than that is a pain in the butt and makes for a really long commute for me. Some wet snow but mostly dry with ice by midwinter.
Rode thru 8" and rising last Christmas. Took me 11/2 hours to get 6 miles...bleh!

this might help: http://www.icebike.org/Articles/techniques.htm

this might help: http://www.icebike.org/Articles/techniques.htm

Thanks for the link; good information, seems pretty reliable from my experience. Fortunately I have an early AM commute with little traffic. As discussed on the website, auto traffic can make the hazardous winter commute, as described, unbearable.

Jim

at least for me, my commute there is at 4am on country roads with not a single car 9 of 10 times i ride. on the main road (1/2 my commute) we have super wide side walks that i ride on seeing how there is absolutly no foot traffic at 4am, and in the winter they have inmates from the county jail shovel the walks daily. thanks.

The snow in the Toronto area is usually wet enough that any more than a few inches can stop me, unless I can ride in the tracks of a heavy vehicle.

That said, traffic is so FUBAR in such conditions it's still always faster to push my bike along the sidewalk than to try and drive anywhere.

the only snow I really have had problems with was wet snow on top of dry. I guess a lot of wet snow would be a problem, but I don't remember that recently. I used to commute on 25mm tires in Wisconsin. I didn't have many problems with that on rural roads.