A review on fat tire snow mountain biking.
Don't try this until you borrow or rent one, unless you are young or an exercise animal. You may not like it. It isn't like you think. You can't go everywhere on the packed trails like you think you could. It is very heavy duty exerting. I ran across 5 other riders on the trail and they report it takes about 4 rides to get so you are comfortable with it. I ran into two women in their late forties I sometimes single track ride with in the summer and they said it takes them an hour to ride the 7 miles and they said it would take me less. Ha, it took me an hour and 20 minutes. The trail has a max climb of 400 feet, and has a section with a lot of steep rock knobs that drop off into swamps. Toward the end of this section I had to push up these. I rested 15 seconds at the top of each knob to let my heart rate recover but it really exhausted me. The knob section ened in a mile long pretty steep grade that I also pushed up. The problem is you can't stop. You can't push start as the trail is too narrow to get good momentum and if you step off it is waist deep. There were two long uphill sections I had to push up, the other long uphill sections were gentle enough that I could pedal. I only used the bottom 3 gears. Only one crash at a switchback on a downhill run. I put my leg out and it never touched bottom and I went swimming in the deep. I was too tired to even try not to fall. I started to notice where a lot of others had fallen over because they were too tired to make it. The end was a big drop to the trail head that made my ears pop. I didn't listen to my buddy that loaned me the bike. His advice is to dress real light, so that you are shivering when you start. Pretty soon you are over heated. I wore too many layers. My gait is still wobbly. This is not as technical as single track summer riding, but good balance helps. Its the exertion level that surprised me. I have read posts where people are all excited to buy a fat tire bike figuring that they can ride anywhere there is snow. That is not possible, the pedals are under the snow and fat tires don't give enough floatation for soft snow. These trails are fairly hard packed, but narrow, soft in places , slightly rutted in places and off camber in places, enough to make it a challenge. This is an expensive and surprisingly light fat bike I borrowed, no cheapie and it had the proper 3 pounds of air in the tires. I still could not stand to climb the steep hills as it lost traction. The secret is conditioning: you have to keep the revs up on the steep parts, which I can't do. I may try it again tomorrow if my wobbliness goes away.
