I'm hoping I will be able to continue my commute through this winter. I've seen plenty of great advice on this site, but mostly from areas pretty used to snow. I'd like to know from any DC/MD/VA commuters out there, if I should prepare anything other than cold weather clothing? For instance, is it worth investing in winter or studded tires? Should I use a completely separate bike, to protect my nice commuter from the vast "over-salting" they do to the roads each winter? I have the option to drive or Metro to work, so it's not a problem to take a day or two off when it's bad, but I would rather not miss out on weeks or months of riding.

Baltimore or Philly riders, feel free to chime in as we have similar climates, but I don't think any city that regularly gets snow is as bad as DC with dealing with it.

The only thing I can say with certainty here is that our winters here are tough to predict. Some winters we barely get any snow at all. And since we are close to the rain/snow boundary, we might have a storm that in the outer suburbs might come down as snow or sleet, and might come down as rain closer in town. With as little as 1/4" of snow, schools start to close and some offices shut down - mainly because of the icy conditions that frequently come with the storm.

Another truism around here is that the quality of plowing can vary greatly. Some areas and major highways get nicely plowed. Other areas are a mess for weeks on end. A lot of this is because the big snowstorms don't come along all that often, so we don't have the amount of snow removal equipment that some of the cities further north might have on hand.

And then we get the odd winters where we really get dumped on - a few years back we had two snowstorms a few weeks apart, and each one had something like 18" or more of snow. After those storms, we had snowpiles that didn't melt until April.

There was a storm about 2 or 3 winters back - we had freezing rain during the evening commute. Cars were at a standstill - bumper to bumper with nowhere to go, and since there were cars on the road the salt trucks couldn't treat the roads. Some of my neighbors didn't get home until 10PM. From our bedroom window, I could see the Dulles toll road, and when I got up to use the toilet in the middle of the night, I looked out the window and saw a sea of red taillights. Myself, I just work from home when the weather is like this.

If you are riding on a trail or MUP, you might find that there is little to no plowing in some areas - you might have to wait for it to melt. Note that what will happen is that it will partially melt and then refreze, so when this happens, you should expect to encounter ice.

As for whether you should buy snowtires - ultimately it is up to you, of course. I don't have any, but I haven't ridden much in the winter in the past - I hope to improve my record this year, but if there is ice on the trails I will probably just wait it out. You definitely need the cold-weather clothing though.

I agree with ericy. Winter in DC is very unpredictable. You could see zero snow days or there could be multiple snow storms, depending on the year. Personally, I avoided investing in studded tires for my two winters in DC. I believe I avoided biking about one dozen times, in favor of bus or metro, due to snow/ice in those two years.

Regarding gear, your face, ears, fingers and toes are what you should focus on. Your core body will stay warm, sometimes TOO warm, with whatever jacket, pants you wear. My rule of thumb is dress for core body as if the temp is 10 degrees higher than it actually is (i.e. don't dress too warm), but treat face, ears, fingers and toes as if the temp is 10 degrees colder than it is.

A big issue with biking in downtown DC after snow storms is that the plows push the snow into the bike lanes, perhaps leaving half of the bike lane snow-covered. Sometimes the entire bike lane could have a pile of snow in it. In these situations it's safest to assertively "take the lane" and ride in the center of the travel lanes.

One more tip: Check out the Bike Arlington forum. It's a great resource for asking all types of bike questions for the DC metro area: Washington Area Bike Forum

Have a backup plan and then have a backup plan for your backup plan. Although admittedly and thankfully rare, we've had hurricanes and earthquakes in the same week. A personal preference of course, but I wouldn't invest in studded tires. I rode after Snowrmageddon without any significant problems and then I was doing about seven miles one way on back roads, Laurel to Beltsville, MD. I fell once, but it was because I was going so slow down a hill I lost momentum. Last year was miserably cold and while I skipped riding for most of it, I don't remember any difficulties with ice.

I commute year round in DC and believe if you ride MUPs you must have studded tires. Last year we had pretty low temperatures after snows that kept the MUPs in bad shape for extended periods of time. Between the potential for black ice on the roads and unkept conditions on the MUPs there’s no way to stay vertical without studs. So, either don’t ride in the rare occasions we get snow, and possibly days/weeks after, or invest and be ready to ride every day.

For what it is worth, I went out and bought studded tires today, and I will install them over the weekend. My reasoning is pretty simple - all you need to do is hit a patch of black ice somewhere and you are on the ground, and the weather is definitely cold enough that one might find ice. Plus I am oftentimes commuting when it is pitch black out, which would make it even harder to see any ice ahead of time.

I ended up getting Kenda Klondike tires - nothing against any of the others, but this was the only pair that anyone had in stock that was in the correct size. That have around 100 studs per tire, which apparently is a good number if you are just commuting on trails and streets.

Mama mia! Not the kenda klondike tires.These are the one i had, all but 2 studs were gone after just one winter. Plus these are the tires responsible for my 2 falls on ice. My current tires that have 0 studs are safer that these on ice for me.