Riding in winter

Have you worked out that GI actually tells you the equivalent front wheel size for an ordinary bicycle?
So what counts an an 'ordinary bike'?

I haven't measured my wheel circumference exactly, I'm using one of those webapp things I found a link to elsewhere on the forum. It has an entry for '26x2.125 (54-559)' which is exactly what I've got.

Re climbing, I'm talking about tarmac. I agree that off road is another matter entirely and I'm thinking I might have to switch back to gears for that. But there is a fairly steep road near where I live that has me stood out of the saddle and pulling my bars like I'm going to bend them in order to get enough push on the pedals to reach the crest. Admittedly, I didn't make it up at all first time I tried it single speed. So I have certainly improved (which was the whole point of switching to ss), but that was over a year ago and it's still an absolute bugger of a climb now.

Re snow, one thing I would definitely recommend is not using hard soled SPD shoes on ice! Why do they make the tread on those things out of a really hard plastic that gives no grip whatsoever? In any other pair of shoes I can quite easily walk on ice, in my cycling shoes all I can do is skate!