Snow Biking: It's Like Skiing with Horsepower, and One Heck of
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Our skis made satisfying whooshes as we slalomed between the saplings, elbowing them aside with each deep lean. The fresh powder was feet deep and swallowed us to our knees at times, but only widened our grins as momentum carried us through. We weren't at the slopes yet and when we reached the base we leaned forward on the pegs, dropped a gear and twisted the throttle to power up to the summit. Once at the top, we paused, then descended into the heavily wooded backslope, with gaps between the trees barely wide enough for our handlebars to pass.
This is called snow biking. It's a mashup of a motorcycle, a snowmobile-like track and a single ski, and it's misnamed. It should be called motor skiing, for the sensation feels more like parallelling downhill with horsepower than any other type of motorcycling. (And nothing like pedalling a fat bike in the snow, which is also sometimes called snow biking.)
The pursuit is breaking out of the X-Games and Red Bull extreme-sport world to move closer to the mainstream. Snow bike rental and tour companies are emerging everywhere with favourable weather and terrain across Canada and the United States, and sales for the leading snow-bike maker have been doubling year over year as people discover that snow bikes are easier to ride than they look, with a short learning curve to so much fun and excitement.
Within less than an hour of twisting the throttle on a snow bike for the first time, this moderately experienced motorbike rider was getting air and taking corners in the snow like he never has in the dirt, and conquering terrain that would defeat many an experienced rider on a snowmobile.
What is a snow bike
Since before the Second World War, dreamers have been trying to make motorcycles snow-worthy by adding tracks and skis.
Snow bikes begin as regular motorcycles, usually of the off-road variety, transformed with a kit that replaces the front wheel with a stubby, fat, ribbed ski and a narrow snowmobile-like track where the swingarm and rear wheel used to be. Four-stroke 450cc motocross bikes are most people's preference as their light weight and high power allow them to stay atop and muscle through the deepest powder.
How to ride
If you're never ridden a motorcycle before, don't try to learn on a snow bike. But, once you've mastered the basics of a standard motorcycle, don't be afraid to swing a leg over a snow bike. If you have some dirt-riding experience, even better.
You don't have to be particularly fit to ride a snow bike, but it can take all the energy you have and then some to get going again if you get stuck. That paddled rear track digs a trench as soon as you lose forward momentum, leaving you in a hole up to the shoulders or deeper real fast. If you wipe out, there's usually ample powder to cushion the blow, but you can find yourself sapped having to “swim” through the quicksand-like powder back to your bike.
Where to ride
Snow bikes don't need (or even like) groomed trails and are often prohibited there anyway. Snow bikes need enough snow to fully bury rocks, logs and other obstacles, and ideally several inches of powder atop a solid base. They also need terrain that's legal to ride, which usually means Crown land. The areas in Canada best-known for snow biking have both.
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