yeah if you live in a place where you wont have to worry about serious ice sheets and dense snow then you can ride slicks. i rode 23c tires all winter and it was fine, except when there was a blizzard and nothing was plowed yet. i still was able to get around but i had to be extra careful. slush and small amounts of snow are fine though. the cars usually clear out most stuff that will give you a problem pretty quick. when there was still a lot of snow around i picked up my under-used ss mtb and bombed around on that.