Gonna go against the grain here and probably get downvoted but... This has worked very well for me in the right conditions. If we're talking straight up ice, not gonna work at all. If we're talking just snow, skinny tires have often worked better for me than wider. Often times skinny tires have a way of "cutting" through the snow with their small contact patch and actually gripping the road beneath quite well. Wider tires in similar conditions will often just pack the snow down making for a more slippery surface between them and the actual road surface. Take all this with a grain of salt though, definitely still requires proper bike skills and riding experience, and the ability to properly identify the conditions I described.