show me your winter bike!

[Eden]

I would say it depends on the terrain you live in and how/if they plow the streets.

When I lived in Rochester, NY - a very snowy place I bike commuted to college winter quarter once. Rochester was very cold and very snowy and very flat. The plowed the roads, but not actually to the pavement... (saves the plow blades to not have them scraping on the ground) As such all but the busiest roads had a somewhat permanent several inch thick coat of very hard packed snow/ice on them at all times. It was actually as easy to ride on as pavement. I changed out my tires for knobby cross tires (I had a Trek 420 at the time) and that was just fine. I don't recall having any problems riding - the only fright I had, had nothing to do with the snow... It was when the golf course deer jumped out in front of me...

I don't recall if Rochester used salt. I'm thinking they did not - they wanted that layer of snow to stay on the roads, and I don't remember having to clean my bike a lot.