Originally Posted by gilby
Agreed. I've biked through 5 Minnesota winters without thin tires. Most of the time I'm not riding through deep snow, anyhow, since the streets here get plowed within hours of (and throughout) a heavy snowfall. I've also never had any need for studded tires.
When you get multiple layers of packed ice, with powder snow on top studded tires are ace. A good combo is a 28 studded ice tire with 25 cyclocross rear, both nokian (other cycloX tires just flat out way too quickly, IMHO)