I need a little help thinking through what I need to do to my bike to continue to commute during Philadelphia's short but messy winter. Typically, we don't get snow and ice on the ground until January/February, but every year it seems to surprise me and I'd like to get a jump start on planning. Here's the situation: neighborhoods are rarely plowed or salted and in the downtown, snow is plowed into the bike lane. I need to be able to ride about 1.5 miles on packed snow with patchy ice (the unplowed neighborhood) and then about 3 miles on possibly plowed but also possibly icy streets/bike lanes with lumpy packed snow and patchy ice. I commute on a Jamis Coda Elite (steel, disc brakes) but also have an old Raleigh mountain bike (aluminum, cantilever brakes) I could use.

Should I just stick studded tires on the Raleigh and reserve it for the icy days? (I did read the excellent thread on winter tires.) I love my disc brakes for quickly stopping for jerk driver maneuvers, though--should I invest in a second set of wheels for the Jamis and put the winter tires on them? What else should I be thinking about?

I went the route of turning an old mountain bike into my dedicated winter bike. It was an easier choice for me, as my other bikes have 27" wheels, so they won't accommodate studded tires anyway.

If you ride both bikes during the winter, then you have to winterize both of them, because the salt will always be on the streets. I decided to just ride the winter bike throughout the season, to keep the salt and muck off the other bikes. The studs slowed me down, but not as much as I imagined they would.

If you don't already have fenders, they are particularly beneficial during the winter.

People have various rituals for prepping and cleaning winter bikes. I coated all of the exposed steel parts of my bike with chainsaw bar oil, which is particularly sticky, and re-applied it a few times through the season. It was a horrid mess, but the only parts that rusted were the ones that I missed. I didn't hose the bike down until spring.

The climate here in NYC is pretty much the same as in Philly. Last winter, of course, was pretty tough, and my route was very icy. I recently bought some studded tires, and I can hardly wait to try them.

Long fenders + mudflaps helps keep the salt/grime off the bike. Once I started riding with the mudflaps, I cut cleaning down to one time per week instead of daily or every other day. Just my $.02.

I live in the Philly area. I have a Fuji touring that gets ridden until first snow, and then an old hard tail mountain bike with 26" that comes out until Spring. There's enough frost and bizarre frozen patches around that even after the snow is "gone" I like riding on the wider studded tires.
Of course, I pay a speed penalty for it. I go from really slow on the touring bike to really, really slow when I switch to the mountain bike.
This is my first year with the electric pedal assist bike. I'm not sure what I'll do with that during the winter. It has 27.5 wheels, and there aren't a lot of choices in studded tires for that size.

I'm hearing that the northeastern states may have a milder and drier winter this year due to El Nino.

Climate Prediction Center - Seasonal Color Maps

I'm mostly happy about this, if it becomes true. On the other hand, I have my brand new studded tires and will be disappointed if I don't need them.

@DogBoy, where are you? Please put your location in your profile. Thanks for the reminder about mudflaps. I might make some out of milk jugs. I already have nice fenders.

Great info, all. I have good fenders on the Jamis but not the Raleigh, so that's something to think about if I make the mountain bike my winter bike. Sadly, salt is not a huge issue since Philly doesn't bother to salt or plow enormous chunks of the city, but that does make lumpy ice (or, as uber_Fred put it, bizarre frozen patches) a big problem.

If I slap some fenders and studded tires on the Raleigh and make it my winter bike, I have to admit I am a little worried about the Raleigh's brakes in icy/grimy conditions. Lame as it sounds, I don't have bandwidth to clean my rims every day. Should I be worried about this or just lighten up? (Or focus on winterizing the Jamis with its disc brakes.)

I have a weather app on my phone. I've seen the predictions change several times within the same day.... and still be wrong.