In 1999 winter commuting I went down on black ice. Hit real hard, had no time to react. Bruised the hip and knee, but the bike seemed ok. 15 years later I am accelerating up a hill on the way home from work and "Snap"! left crank arm breaks off about 40mm from the pedal. Looking at the break it was very corroded about half way through. Happened to be same side I went down on that one winter 15 years before. I know it was a crack from that fall that had been eating its way through the crank arm for a lot of years and miles that caused it to fail. Rode home one legged.

Yesterday was the first morning with dangerously slick roads (slick enough that I drifted through several turns) of the season to date, I took the sharp off-camber turn out of my apartment complex a little tighter than I knew I should and went down on my side. Got up, bent the derailer hanger back to where it needed to be and finished the ride to work as if nothing had happened.

Studded tires work great for me. The Boston MA, area has a lot of freeze/ thaw and mixed precipitation. Keeps you upright. YRMV.

+1 for studs. I ride in all manner of crap in changing temps from rain to snow and back along 32km of highway commute daily. I squirm less on ice than I do on hot tar snakes in the summer!

Like everything else - there are different grades of studded tires, with different numbers of studs, different performance characteristics, different qualities of studs and different prices. I bought Nokian 240s myself because I know that many times a year, I'm going to have to drive on bicycle paths that have been flooded with melt water during the afternoon, but are still sheer ice underneath all that.

The only time I've ever had an issue is braking on steep grades - the wheels WILL still slide with the brakes engaged. Course that's true for cars and buses on those same hills too so I try to avoid them.

Globie, are you back on the ice? We are to have some heat for a few days now in Misery. I went down a few years ago on a corner, with snow everywhere. It happened so fast I didn't tighten up and then landed with a bit of snow under me. Just lucky. I laughed and got back on. Had to get to work. Now time to play ... no rest for the wicked. This is winter number six and number two with commercial studs. After that spill I made some studded tires with pop rivets.Tthen I picked up the Trek 520 and got 240s on front, 106s on the back.