Let's Talk About Snow Bikes

[hamqqea]

Yay! I'm not alone in the world anymore

 

[Starnger]

Guys from the Rastabike club (Moscow) built a few bikes to drag-race on ice! They took part in the event called "Baikal Mile" in 2020 along with cars and motorcycles, where they raced on the frozen surface of the lake Baikal in Russia. Here are some of the pictures, but you can easily find more photos and videos online. I can post more about it if you guys are interested.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

"67" is serious. Lookit the sprocket with that cottered crank! Great looking rat racer

 

[hamqqea]

I find women to be more adventuress than men in some situation. Grown men turn into mice when I put them on narrow ledges or ice at night. For me it's a non issue because I have no fear of heights.

 

[ifitsfreeitsforme]

oh man, I dig the pictures from Russia. That looks looks like a fun time.

I'm glad this snow bike discussion is still going.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

Grown men turn into mice when I put them on narrow ledges or ice at night. For me it's a non issue because I have no fear of heights.

I was born without the common sense required to generate fear. It is a version of the old "mind over matter" thing: if you got no mind, it doesn't matter.

 

[Tallbikeman]

I used to ride partially cleared streets on ol' Droppy (a scratched up rusty Good Vibrations) last century. Chances of that happening now are zero. Put bike and snow in the same sentence and this is what comes to mind.

View attachment 182190

I once lived in a land of ice and snow and moved away. Now all my winter tires on my bicycles look exactly like my summer tires. Central California will do that to your bicycle riding.

 

[Cycledelic68]

Its snowing here again. I used to ride this Free Spirit bike to and from the subway years ago until the chain broke. I was thinking of putting on a new chain and fixing it up again. It worked pretty good in the snow.

 

[Tallbikeman]

Here is a snow bike I saw in Riga, Latvia back in 2012

View attachment 182330

The rear wheel appears to be two wheels side by side complete with two hubs and all requisite spokes. Apparently used a long axle to get both hubs of each wheel side by side. Cool home made bike.

 

[Karate Chicken Industries]

The rear wheel appears to be two wheels side by side.

IIRC, some of the original fatbikes used in Alaska on the Iditarod Trail had wheels set up with side-by-side rims to accomodate fatter treads. One of the regular competitors BITD lived in my area at the time and he had a custom set up that way.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

So the budget fell through the floor on this, looks like two feet and a heartbeat remain the choice for Matti this time of year. Still want to share this little nugget:

https://www.kijiji.ca/v-mountain-bi...ion/ktrak-snow-bike-conversion-kit/1600964073

 

[us56456712]

I used to ride partially cleared streets on ol' Droppy (a scratched up rusty Good Vibrations) last century. Chances of that happening now are zero. Put bike and snow in the same sentence and this is what comes to mind.

View attachment 182190

This reminds me of the mid 60s here in the UP. There were quite a few of us (at least 6 riders that I remember) who rode Triumph motorcycles daily all winter. We could afford either a VW Bug, junker car or a British motorcycle, but not a car and a motorcycle. We opted for the motorcycle. We either had jobs or jobs and university classes so we rode in horrid rounded bumpy smooth ice. My one friends rode 130 mile round trip, just for fun, where only the car tires had occasionally worn away the ice In a narrow grove. I don’t know how he did it, it was cold, no electric cheater heater jackets then, and there were lots of places that day where the tires hadn’t worn down the ice. It was treterous. He was the best rider of the group. Sadly he was killed by a hit and run driver on the freeway on his motorcycle about 20 years ago. They never found the killer. The police told his widow, right away, that in cases like this they seldom find the killer. Hopefully more people have cameras now. I was shocked to hear that this was a pretty common occurrence.

 

[us56456712]

Here is a snow bike I saw in Riga, Latvia back in 2012

View attachment 182330

Wah!

 

[oldiron]

60's Columbia, it sat right there for a couple months.
Came home one day and noticed that the rear tire was rubbing the frame, when I took a closer look I saw the chainstays had broken nearly completely off the BB. It was a rusty mess of a bike that I only used around the neighborhood or for beer runs, so no loss. (When I got it the BB nut had been tack welded in place, and the bearings sounded like a coffee grinder, the front fork was bent, the wheels were badly rusted and the tires were bald and worn through but i had cut a strip of center tread out of another tire and slipped it in between the tube and tire casing so the tube wouldn't pop out.
It was snowing the night I parked it there, it was late, the bike was junk, so I left it there.....for about 12 years.

Somewhere along the line I did salvage the grips and saddle off it for another bike, but the rest was junk. I had ridden though for about 8 years before it got parked, it was my beater at the shore house and campground, it came with a camper I bought in the 80's.

 

[Grant]

 

[Pondo]

I got this Mongoose a few years ago when I was living at higher elevations. It is fun to ride in the snow as long as the pedals aren't dragging in it. Better for powder than Sierra cement. It does fine for snow drifts until they get too deep. It is a good shoulder season bike for exploring fire roads when it is still mud and patches of snow that would be too much for a regular tire. What I really like it for is old skid trails that have gotten over grown. With the big 4" tires it will ride over a ton of debris that I would have to push or carry a regular mountain bike over. It's not an efficient pedaller but it's cool and fun for what it's good at. Unfortunately I don't have any pics of it out in the wild and in this pic it is still fairly new. It got more stickery and dirty subsequently.

 

[tucker]

Canadian downhill, apparently these were kits, just add your own garage sale ski. No I do not ride it.

 

[kingfish254]

 

[Ulu]

Canadian downhill, apparently these were kits, just add your own garage sale ski. No I do not ride it.View attachment 211122

I went to college at a ski school. That’s where you went if you wanted to ski but you didn’t have much money: Utah state.

I remember kids building stuff like this out of skis they would find on the mountain side in the spring.

I guess people lose skis and don’t recover them all the time? I don’t ski, myself.

 

[Starnger]

Here is another example from Russian internet: