I'm thinking of putting studded tires on one of my bikes. The two candidates are a cyclocross bike which currently has 700cx32 knobbies and a hard tail MTB which currently has 26x2.2 knobbies. Whichever one gets the studded tires will only be ridden when the roads are icy. The other one will be ridden otherwise. Which would you rather ride on 5 miles of paved icy shoulder? It's sort of a county road that they plow, but leave the shoulder with snow pack that turns to ice patches.

I commute on 3 bikes. One has 28's on it for decent roads. One is a steel hard tail with regular mt tires on it and the other is an alum hard tail with the studs, the bike I don't mind getting dirty.

Both the hard tails, btw, had the forks replaced with rigid steel forks.

So my vote goes to the mt bike.

The main thing I'm wondering about is how the different dimensions of the 700c and 26 inch tires affect use of studded tires on ice. 700c is larger diameter and usually skinnier (at least for similar weight). 26 inch tires are smaller diameter and usually wider. Not sure what the ideal tire shape is for studded tires on ice.

I tried both my bikes out in deep snow on Thursday. The 35x700c bike was really pushed around by ruts and stuff but cut through the deep snow really well, the 2.1x26" bike handled the ruts and chunks well but bogged down in the deep stuff. Neither had studs but I imagine they'd behave like they did better with studded tires. I'll be putting studs on the mountain bike cuz it took the real world road conditions better.


edit:
knob shape doesn't effect the ice its only the amount of studs you can put into the ice and the placement of the studs: side studs climb out of ruts and help in leaning, the middle ones do the rest.

You'll have more options in studded tires for 26" than 700C. https://www.peterwhitecycles.com/studdedtires.asp For example, the mount and ground only comes in 26". How wide of a tire can your cyclocross bike take? I got 700Cx35 W106 for my hybrid, and they work well and have helped a lot, but I wish I had my mountain bike here so I could have gotten a wider, more aggressive tread/stud for when it's pretty bad out.

I ride with the Nokian W106 622-35c on my crosscheck.
Also on mostly unpaved roads that become hard packed snow and finally compress pretty much
to ice. They are highly effective on the hard pack/ice surface. Have not tried a 559 studded tire.
IMO, the difference is how smooth the surface stays. If a lot of ridges bumps pocks etc develop,
more studs especially toward the tire edges would probably be a benefit. If the surface stays
fairly smooth, then the W106 is a great choice. It is snowing sideways right now. However yesterday
afternoon I was riding for about an hr, the road surface was still in the "mealy" stage (we've had about 16" of snow this past week), not really quite packed yet- so I sunk in a little in spots. A wider tire might have helped reduce that. I think it depends upon the most probably surface conditions.