Terry I commuted one winter on a 175 yamaha to the bike shop I was managing yes I was cold but also it was a blast, and truthfully there were advantages to the bike over the cars, with knobs on the tires the bike tracked well in most snow conditions, also as far as going up hill if the cars couldn't get up all you had to do was stick it in low (1st) get off and walk along side while it either pulled you along or you pushed it past the slippery bit as far as ice went mostly you mostly stuck to streets or back country roads that weren't well travelled and rode at the edge where the ice was still crunchy.
The other thing, you could do things on the snow and ice that you would never try on pavement or dirt because of the pain factor, if you fell off you just slid in the cold and I only dropped it once that winter ( because I was trying to do a feet up 360 at about 15 mph and I was good until I got to half way and couldn't make up my mind whether to give it more gas or back off to get it around { my fault for indecision })and the only damage was a broken signal light as far as other down sides it was having to wait for your wife to take the hair dryer to the long zipper on the one piece snowmobile suit so you could pee when you got home. It was an interesting year, it taught me a lot about how bikes handled on various surfaces the only true bad times were freezing rain, ice pellets and sleet.
Bill the demon.
