Originally Posted by
racoonbeast
Given the temperature swings of a sunny winter day, you might get to ride in both. I could go on, but my point is that it would seem to me, as one with no experience in winter riding, that the vast variances in conditions that would be encountered with any commute in the winter would rule out any "one size fits all" approach to this problem, with the possible exception of fat, wide, studded tires. Am I wrong?
I live in Minnesota, and you are entirely correct.
For just ice, one can just get good studded tires (I prefer Schwalbe Marathon Winters). Get Schwalbe or Nokian or something that you know has carbide studs.
For light snow, the same tire usually works well.
For more snow, it's really hard. I'd have to write an essay to describe it, but it's difficult. Only about a 4" studded tire on a fat bike is pretty good, and even that has it's limits. I've personally not found that midrange tires like 2" made a huge difference vs 35c Marathon Winters, though others have disagreed with me. Only a 4" really made things better for riding on snow for me.