I don't really commute these days (unless you count driving to the post office a few times per week to pick up the mail) but before I retired I drove a bike to work every day year round.
If you are going to commute by motorcycle in winter you pretty much need a sidecar, if only so you don't fall over on slippery roads. For the last 14 years my winter bike has been a CX650E based sidecar outfit (that has been gradually turning into a GL500 - you can read its history
here). Over the years (mostly before the CX) I learned what the bike needed to become suitable for winter and what to wear so I didn't freeze to death. I can elaborate if you are interested.
I traditionally had a 2 wheeled bike for the warm half of the year, the last of which was my '83 GoldWing with '77 engine, at least for the first dozen years after I put it together from my wrecked GL1000 and an 1100 that sat for a decade (mostly outside).
Then they closed a road that was part of my 2 wheeled (on pavement) route to work for most of a summer (rebuilding a couple of bridges) and when I had to take the 'Wing on some of the dirt/gravel roads I previously only used on 3 wheels I realized that the scenery there was much nicer in summer (& better than on the paved roads) so I got a second sidecar for the 'Wing.
I should mention that when I started commuting on bikes we lived in a suburb of Toronto but a couple of years later we moved to a small town and I got a job close to home (initially a 5 minute drive but then we moved farther away and it became a 25 minute trip).
