Snow Bike Adventures

With my new fat bike and a whole week of vacation during Christmas meant biking in the snow.  I went out at least 5 times and they were all great.  The few times, most of the times, were in major snowstorms.  The first time, I tried it out there and it was confusing.  I didn't know much how it would handle in fresh snow.  That means not on packed down snow.  It's a lot harder in fresh snow and sometimes the bike would slide all over the place.  The picture above and below were in different rides which I rode on packed down tire tracks.  The above one, I just rode around on the backroads and around town which had snow all over the roads.  The below one was a great ride, I went up on Kane Valley Road all the way to the end in the middle of a snowstorm.  It was a total blast.  Duke kept up with me the whole time, probably because the fat bike rode slower.  Luckily somebody drove their truck with big tires and made tracks for me that morning.

I rode on some great but cold days when the sun came out.  I learned two things from fat biking, it's much easier to ride on packed down snow, and to ride with platform pedals.  After the first snowstorm ride, I had a hard time clipping in my clipless pedals.  So I switched to pedals with toe straps but that still didn't make it easier.  So I took the toe straps off and rode on just platform pedals.  That made it a lot more bearable!  The ride was a lot more easier and funner.  I agree!  So anyway, I went on a lot of rides, one time I rode up the Canyon Road but there were too much people sledding down and cars going up and down, plus the road up with about 2 or 3 inches of snow pedaling on a heavy 35 pound fat bike made it really hard.  I was maxed out on my heart rate all the way up.  I turned around at New Canyon Road turnoff and then got to the bottom and went up again.  It's hard to keep the pace up after the New Canyon Road turnoff.  So I won't go up the road again, unless it's more packed down and there are less people.  Maybe because it was the holidays but whatever.  But I did have a good ride today, I went up on the road from the Lund farm which was packed down by snowmobilers and trucks.  I went past Gordon's farm and around further and back through Dr. Olson's property and down Mill Road.  Then I went up on Lund farm road again and back down.  It was great because it was all packed down.  Maybe that's what I need to do, is to ride on packed down snowmobile trails.  Maybe sometime soon, I will take a trip up to Fairview Skyline and ride on the snowmobile trails there.  We'll see, but what great two weeks I had!

The new member of the family: a fat bike

 Yes, I have a new member in my own little Dan B. family world.  I bought this bike, which is some how called "the fat bike".  It is in otherwords, a snow bike.  This bike is pretty much a pedal bike with big huge 4 inch tires that goes over stuff like you wouldn't imagine.  It can also go on sand so I wouldn't be surprised to see these at rental beach bike houses like in Hawaii, or Cayman Islands.  They are popular in Alaska where there is dirt 3 months a year.  Also people like to go on huge fat bike adventures on the Alaskan beach in the summers, then ride in the snow in the snow season. 

 I had my first eyes on these bikes from facebook friends from the Provo/Salt Lake area, like last winter when they first came out.  Saw pictures and seem interested.  I saw a fat bike in a bike shop in Provo on display and thought it was stupid and I now I watched youtube videos, and facebook friends post pictures and thought maybe this bike would be fun during the winter, and to keep me in shape.  I saved my money, well at first I saved it all year for a Disneyland trip with my family during this Christmas but I guess it's been cancelled and so I had money and decided to buy this.  I bought a Surly Moonlander.  It's the only fat bike with the biggest tires than all the other kind of fat bikes like the Salsa Mukluk.  The Mukluk was my first choice but I guess the guy I bought it from was just a Surly dealer and I really love this bike!

 I went on a ride two days after I bought it, and the day after I got the bike, it snowed!  I couldn't wait to try it out!  I went out on some roads just outside of town and at the base of the foot hills.  It worked great.  It didn't slide and went over the snow easily.  It was awesome.  You probably can't go up steep hills or gnarly steep downhills on a snow bike but it works great on flat and moderately graded hills.  I get enough workout that way too.

I used spd kind of pedals at first and they didn't do well clipping in with snow and ice on the cleats of my shoes.  But I did some research and they say the Time or Crank Bros. pedals work great in snow and mud and are recommended for fat bikes.  So I got the Time Z pedals.  I haven't tried them yet so it's supposed to snow tonight and tomorrow and I will go biking tomorrow.  I hope they will work great, and I have some snow booties for my shoes.  I hope it snows a lot!

Here's a video I posted to get you an idea to see how fat bikes ride:

San Rafael Swell fall of 2012

 This is the trip I planned for a long time, to go back to the Swell.  I wanted to invite my family too also to see the area.  Mike and his family came and also my parents.  We all met at the Wedge on this good day with perfect weather.  Clear sunny day and perfect temps.  My parents and I left like an hour and half earlier so I can do a bike ride along the Good Water Rim Trail on the Wedge.  I did this trail last year and this time, it was awesome.

 Awesome singletrack with lot's of turns.  The trail was 15 miles and I did a loop with the road back to the campground area with a total of 23 miles.  It was a blast!  I had a bike wreck and it wasn't pretty.  One end on my handlebar got caught on a tree branch so I fell and fell on my side,  broke my cell phone and a buckle on my shoe.  The buckle can be replaced and my cell phone contract is up in two weeks anyway, so I will get a new cell phone by then.  I am using one of my old cell phones now.

 It was pretty and I loved the scenery!  Other than the crash, I had a good ride.  We all ate a picnic at the Wedge Overlook.

 After that, we went down Buckhorn Draw.  It's a good scenic dirt road that goes from the Wedge to Interstate 70.  There are petroglyths, pictographs, and a dinasour track along the way.  Also a Matt Warner name painted on a rock who was an outlaw that rode with Butch Cassidy then fixed his life up afterwards.  Pretty cool.

 These pictographs were amazing.  Everybody was amazed.  When we got to the pictograph panel, we couldn't really see them but we've read that we could see them better when it's shady.  So we saw the sun would go behind this mountain any minute, so we waited for like a half an hour.  Then we were in business.

 It's amazing to see how these pictrographs were painted by the Lamanites when Christ was on this earth 2000 years ago(Mormon beliefs).

 Jeri was really thirsty and she had a blast.

 We saw some modern petroglyths, if it wasn't for Laura, we wouldn't see these.  She had good eyes!  Mike and Josh were trying to figure out the story on these petroglyths.

It was a good day trip and everybody enjoyed it.  We didn't know we could get to this kind of stuff in 2 hours from our homes.  It was awesome.

Dreamin' on Pipe Dream Trail

This sign said the trail is for advanced riders, expert only, yep, they were right!  It was a lot of fun too!  I did the Pipe Dream Trail on the day after I did Bull run.  This. Trail. Is. Hard.  It is located just south and above Moab and I can see riders like to get riding on this right from town.  It is a great technical trail

 Going under a boulder.

 I loved the switchbacks on this trail.  Fun!  Also with lot's of boulders to go over and steep side sections.  Lot's of up and down riding with 1,000 vertical feet of total climbing.

There's a biker down there.  Yeah, she passed me and we were talking about how fun the trail was.

 This a hard section, fun but ridable.

I was going to do an out and back which was 10 miles total but my hands were too fatigue from a lot of braking.  So I did a loop by doing a return on the Pipeline Road.  I liked this trail because it was challenging.

Biking with the Bulls on Bull Run Trail

 This was a really nice, fun trail with a bunch of sweetness added to it!  That's all I can say!

 A lot of this had slickrock and dirt variation kind of trail.

 I don't why I keep taking pictures of the easy parts of the trail, so this is not most of it.  There were a lot of sections, with boulders, slickrock, drops, and with gnarly climbs.

 Went down for a nice trip to Moab, my parents came along.  It was very nice, perfect weather and that's what made the trip more enjoyable.  It was a 5 mile trail and I did it out and back with a total of 10 miles.  The Bull Run is the first part of the Mag 7 Trail series.  They say the Bull Run is the funnest part of the Mag 7.  I agreed, it was a fun section and I had a blast.  I started From Gemini Bridges and went uphill with about 1,000 vertical feet of climbing, then I went back down with a fun downhill. 

 There were some cliff side riding and lots of fun boulders to go over.

I turned around here at the top.  The continous trail was 7 Up and I wanted to go more on it but I turned around because it was getting dark.  Next time, I will make sure I have more time to ride.

Horseshoe Canyon Hike

 On UEA weekend, the Tony family invited us to go see some pictographs in Horseshoe Canyon located in Canyonlands National Park.  The hike was around 7 miles out and back.  It goes down into a sweet looking canyon with pictographs in most areas.

 Brayden checking them out.

 This one means "Holy Ghost"  and this one is very big.

 Most of the hike was on a sandy wash and was fun to walk on it through the canyon.  The hike up back from down the canyon was a 700 vertical foot climb and was it a good workout.  The hike took about 5 hours.  It was great fun!  My parents came but they only hiked a couple miles.  We still had fun.  We had Stan's Burgers in Hanksville afterwards.

 More pictographs.

 Tony and Hannah walking.

 Hannah.

 It was great to hike and see this stuff!

This guy stole my nephew's trail mix while we were sitting looking at some pictographs, now I got a picture of him and I can report it.  Ha ha.  Well, we were taking about he probably needed it worse than we did.

Maybe! It would be nice though!

This would be really great if this happens.....The blue markings on this map above to be a bike trail.   I did some trail scouting up there like 3 months ago then looked again lastnight.  It would work, and it would be nice.  It would also be a lot of hard work.  I don't care if it takes a long time but the reward would be great.  The red markings is the trail I built this summer and it's working out great on the riding and not hard at all.  The point is that I am trying to make a good uphill singletrack to the top of the popular downhill Flume Trail.  The new trail would be a lot of switchbacks and then through some trees and up to Taylor's Flat crossing the canyon road.  If this works, it would so awesome, I mean awesome awesome.
This is on BLM land and I hope I could do it legally.  I know I can't on US Forest Land and in fact we got trouble for building the Pioneer, Maple Syrup, and Bovine trails which they are on Forest Land.   We just heard that they are shutting them down.  Anyways, the new bike store downtown is creating a bike club through IMBA to try to keep them open.  So I am crossing my fingers on this one.  At least keep them open for mountain bikers and hikers.  Would be really great if they keep them for motor bikers too.
First, I am going to talk to a few people to get information on the laws for BLM land.  Hopefully I could start building this trail next spring.

American Fork Canyon Mountain Biking

 For Labor Day, all I wanted to do is not work.  Had somebody asked me to help them out on that day already but I said, "Nope, going to be gone."  All I wanted to do is go on a bike ride, a fun one.  I decided to go up north with my mom and she said she would wait for me while I go on my ride.  We went up to American Fork Canyon and there was a LOT of people.  Once I got on the trail and trailhead, it wasn't so bad.  While I went on a ride, my mom sat on a lawn chair in the shade and read a book, which she enjoyed. 

 The trail I did was called Deer Creek South Fork Loop.  It consisted around 7 miles long and all singletrack.  The first part of it was all climbing and was tough.  Then I got on Ridge 157 Trail with up and down riding with AWESOME views of Timpanogus Mountain and other places. 

 The singletrack was not too technical and was mostly hardpack but very fun.  I loved my new Maxxis Crossmark and Ignitor tires.

 Some of Timpanogus Mountain.

 There are a lot other trails up there.  The bad side is that you got to pay a fee to get in the canyon but thank goodness my mom had a senior citizen National Parks pass.  So we got in free.  I guess you got to always pay to ride on some good trails, oh well.

The last part of the loop was all downhill.  Lot's of fast turns and whoops through the pine trees and aspens.  Great fun!!!  Anyways, after we were done, we met my sister at Olive Garden in Sandy to eat.