studded tire recommendations in the 26x1.75
 

I've debated riding in the winter, but a slow speed crash required about 3 years until my shoulder stopped hurting. It has made me kind of a chicken in terms of crashing again, but I need to get past that fear. I think I have finally got myself ready to give this a try and plan to use two bikes. For clearer days, I will be using a 90's titanium bike with 700c wheels. I have a set of tires for this already.

For times when there is more snow/ice, I plan to use an old Bridgestone XO-2. The fork seems to be the limiting factor, with only about 2" of clearance, so I am looking for tires in the 1.75" range. Does anyone here have recommendations?

Other than the approximately 0.25 mile ride to get to the trail, I would then be riding an asphalt paved trail that I don't think gets cleared. FWIW, I live in northern Illinois. I don't think we get snow as often as I recall as a child, but we still can get snow and it tends to linger.

I'm assuming that since the trail will not be cleared, I should get something with deeper tread, but I honestly have no experience here.

As a side question, does anyone here recommend balaclava's for big heads? I have some that barely fit, but are so tight that it gets hard to move my head around.

Not sure about the tire recommendation but I do Winter riding on my Jamis steel commuter bike with 700X38 studded tires. I'm right next door to you in Iowa and we get our fair share of snow. The studs aren't deep but they do help with gripping. My commute is 14 miles each way and approximately 2 miles to the trail from my house. The trail does get cleared but only 3-4 days after the snow is done falling so I'm usually "wing it" once I leave the house not knowing what I'll encounter. As long as I'm not facing a foot of snow it's good lol.

I ended up buying some 26x1.75" Suomi tires.