scarlson 

I've tried to make a dedicated winter bike several times. I will share my experience, which differs somewhat from the mainstream. My commute is several miles and pretty flat. Back when I started the project, it was longer, about 5 miles, and very hilly. Both were urban so plowing was fairly good, but parked cars and narrow streets do make things harder. My conclusion from both commutes was the same.

The winter bike project I tried from 2013-2015 is one of my failures. On paper it looked great. It had studs, mountain bike clearances for slush, sealed drivetrain, fenders, and a drum brake. Even when I lived in Burlington Vermont, there were only a handful of days each year when the snow and ice were bad enough to warrant these features.

The studs and sealed drivetrain really slowed me down the rest of the time, while the drum brake provided mediocre performance and frequently filled with melt water and condensate that then froze and rendered it completely useless until I heated it up by braking while pedaling.

The biggest beef I had was with studs. I found that they would give me loads of grip until a certain lean angle, and then I'd have none, and the bike would slide out from under me. It depended on temperature and ice thickness and salt levels, so I never really knew how much I could lean over and still trust the studs. This made them effectively no more useful than an ordinary rubber tire. The worst thing happened in very cold conditions (0F and below), when the tire's rubber would get stiff and not deform enough for the studs to push in, so I was effectively only riding on the carbide studs, with no rubber touching the road. This was very dangerous and resulted in my only ever faceplant in decades of cycling. The phenomenon was present in both Schwalbe Marathon Winter and Nokian Hakkapeliitta W240 tires. In opposite conditions, hard lake ice such as was present on Lake Champlain in 2014 (I think?) when it froze completely over and I tried to ride the 6mi from VT to NY on the lake, the studs barely worked well enough for me to stay upright.

I ended up selling it (and all that specialist equipment was hard to sell!) and now I use a randonneur style bike for commuting year-round. It's what I use to this day, and I do not skip days. In heavy snow it's kind of a drag, but that happens only a few times a year, and I just deal with it. The brakes don't work well in the snow but I plan ahead and go slower to stop safely. The fenders pack up with slush so I kick them a bit to free things up. The drivetrain gets covered in salt, so I re-cover it in large quantities of Fluid Film or spray lithium grease or motor oil. I replace my chain and cassette yearly in the spring after the winter has taken its toll.

In the snow, the faux-randonneur commuter is just as slow and difficult to use as my dedicated snow bike was. In all other conditions, it is faster and easier to use. Maintenance is somewhat higher, but that's a price I'm willing to pay. The one good thing that came out of the project was a preference for Shimano dynamo hubs and Busch/Muller standlights. They are really useful in the dark winter months and have given me no trouble through years of use in all conditions.

Edit: Another good thing to come out of this project was metal fenders! I found them to withstand being kicked (accidentally due to toe clip overlap or on purpose to clear salt-slush) in subzero temperatures without cracking like my SKS ones did.

Again this is my experience from relatively short (≤5mi) urban commutes. In a rural area with worse plowing and longer distances, the optimal solution may well be different.