Toques off for those winter commuting in colder places like Montreal.

It doesn't count as much in places like Austin where we have shorter daylight but freezing temperatures are more the exception than the rule.

I haven't owned a car since 2001 and that includes seven winters in northern Colorado where we had cold snowy weather with a few mixed warmer days thrown in. I started out with normal tires and occasionally watching where I might slide. However, I did go down hard twice on ice when my front tire slid. Fortunately it was also cold, so I was well bundled. A rear slip I can recover from, but front tire slide seemed to happen much quicker. After that I outfitted one of my bikes with studded tires. The main arterial streets were typically fine, but we would sometimes get a packed/rutted layer of ice on smaller side roads. That is where I particularly appreciated my studded tire bike. On days without this ice, I would ride a bike without studded tires.