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!