fourthmeal
Administrator
Normally I wouldn't do any kind of in-depth report on something I have planned for a future mag feature... but forget that, I guess.
So from one of the biggest skeptics of the dirt bike / snow bike conversions, I have to admit it was more fun than I ever anticipated. Maybe it's because there's a hint of betrayal by leaving a perfectly good snowmobile in the garage to ride something that is supposed to be limited to the horrible months of the year when there is no snow on the ground. Maybe it's because of all the hype and bragging that surrounds these sort of engineering concepts. Maybe it's because we've worked hard enough at making snowmobiles as good as they are, we don't want something equally as good coming along in its first year. We rode some of the early versions of other conversion kits and weren't wowed. So I passed up chances to ride Timbersled's Mountain Horse last year and didn't loose sleep over it.
Well, anyway, Timbersled's Allen Mangum brought three bikes down for us to try last week. He's been so excited about the project, and is such a well-respected industry player we figured it wouldn't hurt anything to give up a day on sleds to ride these instead. So I went as the token sledder with bike experience, and Chuck Harris (admin on here) went as the token dirt biker with sled experience.
We drove east of Idaho Falls toward Pine Creek Pass and unloaded near Mike Spencer Canyon along Idaho 31. Allen said that the bikes are best in places you wouldn't take sleds--narrow, thick trees, willows, steep canyons sidehills, open creeks, etc. I had it in my mind at this point that anyone who says you take bikes where you can't take sleds doesn't do much technical tree riding (that doesn't include my impression of Allen--I've ridden with him before and know he's as serious a tree rider as they come).
We started up the canyon and peeled off up an untracked drainage. Nothing severe, but the type of bottom drainage you would just blow right by on sleds on route to the bigger woods and taller hills. This canyon was fairly tight at the bottom, with a fairly open south facing side and a steeper, more wooded north facing slope. Nothing a sled wouldn't go up the bottom of, but you'd be through it in two minutes. On the bikes, we spent 20 minutes carving around on the steeper north facing slope. But we were just getting used to the strange feel of a narrow bike and one ski on a steep sidehill line.
A few canyons later and at a much higher comfort level, we turned up a very tight ravine that had a near-vertical west face with tall, thick timber and a steep east face with a little more room to move. That led to higher elevations with bigger trees and more technical terrain. The bikes crawled around like ants. A very skilled rider could put a sled where we went, but definitely not on the same lines. On the bike, you can start a sidehill, drop into the ravine and turn back the opposite direction but still going uphill. You can carve around knobs on the mountain so steep your front fender is cutting into the snow, and do it slow enough to maintain 100 percent control. I started a decent off one ridge spur that turned into a single-line bomb off the hillside. I tried to get the bike into a turn, but wound up getting tossed. The bike self-arrested instantly (tail of the ski dug right in), but it was so steep that I slid on my back a good 60 feet farther down the hill before I was able to stop. It took a few minutes to get back up to the bike, but I got on and drove away around the side of the spur.
It was like that for the rest of the ride. Up trackless tight ravines, through the big timbers on the ridges, traversing down the open hillsides on the back and racing literally bar-to-bar through tree-littered slopes (Allen likes to dice it out).
So it's not like we were doing what we couldn't do on sleds. We were doing what we wouldn't do on sleds. Riding the other half of the mountain... that's covered in willows, drops into a V-bottom, flanked by walls that are too steep to sidehill, or just woods that look too thick to bother with on sleds.
There are downsides. The bikes don't like hardpack trails. The ski darts and the track fights to stay flat. Fortunately, they are so fun in the willows and saplings right out of the parking lot that you can avoid trails. You wouldn't want to take a bike with a group of sleds, or a sled with a group of bikes. You're just going to be looking at different parts of the mountain, and going at different paces. A sled will cover ground a lot quicker and climb straight up long slopes. But the fun of the bike is hanging back and zig-zagging your way up that stuff anyway. You do a lot of leg lifting, like along long, steep sidehills. You have to suspend your leg to keep it from dragging in the snow. Surprisingly, I wasn't that sore after a day-long ride. It's a brand-new segment, which means that if you are interested, you're going to have to get at least one of your friends to buy one so you have someone to ride with.
Maybe the bikes can go where sleds can't, but sleds can go where bikes can't. But that's not the issue. It was just so dang fun, like how you feel when you explore a new canyon and find a whole new riding spot on sleds. I thought about it for the rest of the weekend. I wanted to get up and go again Saturday. I want to go again now. You don't go out and ride with the mindset you would on sleds. Rather than the rush of horsepower, the bikes have that go-anywhere appeal. It's kind of like single-track dirt biking, only there's not a trail you have to stick to. Go anywhere. The cool factor of being able to creep around the side of crap you wouldn't ever imagine on the Mountain Horse matches the feeling of pulling some insanely technical line through the backcountry on sleds. It's awesome.
There's a ton of pics, so it will take a couple days to edit and post.
Allen on the KTM 690. Chuck and I rode a YZ450F and KX450F.
If you've got a problem with the long post, PM me and pretend I read it.
So from one of the biggest skeptics of the dirt bike / snow bike conversions, I have to admit it was more fun than I ever anticipated. Maybe it's because there's a hint of betrayal by leaving a perfectly good snowmobile in the garage to ride something that is supposed to be limited to the horrible months of the year when there is no snow on the ground. Maybe it's because of all the hype and bragging that surrounds these sort of engineering concepts. Maybe it's because we've worked hard enough at making snowmobiles as good as they are, we don't want something equally as good coming along in its first year. We rode some of the early versions of other conversion kits and weren't wowed. So I passed up chances to ride Timbersled's Mountain Horse last year and didn't loose sleep over it.
Well, anyway, Timbersled's Allen Mangum brought three bikes down for us to try last week. He's been so excited about the project, and is such a well-respected industry player we figured it wouldn't hurt anything to give up a day on sleds to ride these instead. So I went as the token sledder with bike experience, and Chuck Harris (admin on here) went as the token dirt biker with sled experience.
We drove east of Idaho Falls toward Pine Creek Pass and unloaded near Mike Spencer Canyon along Idaho 31. Allen said that the bikes are best in places you wouldn't take sleds--narrow, thick trees, willows, steep canyons sidehills, open creeks, etc. I had it in my mind at this point that anyone who says you take bikes where you can't take sleds doesn't do much technical tree riding (that doesn't include my impression of Allen--I've ridden with him before and know he's as serious a tree rider as they come).
We started up the canyon and peeled off up an untracked drainage. Nothing severe, but the type of bottom drainage you would just blow right by on sleds on route to the bigger woods and taller hills. This canyon was fairly tight at the bottom, with a fairly open south facing side and a steeper, more wooded north facing slope. Nothing a sled wouldn't go up the bottom of, but you'd be through it in two minutes. On the bikes, we spent 20 minutes carving around on the steeper north facing slope. But we were just getting used to the strange feel of a narrow bike and one ski on a steep sidehill line.
A few canyons later and at a much higher comfort level, we turned up a very tight ravine that had a near-vertical west face with tall, thick timber and a steep east face with a little more room to move. That led to higher elevations with bigger trees and more technical terrain. The bikes crawled around like ants. A very skilled rider could put a sled where we went, but definitely not on the same lines. On the bike, you can start a sidehill, drop into the ravine and turn back the opposite direction but still going uphill. You can carve around knobs on the mountain so steep your front fender is cutting into the snow, and do it slow enough to maintain 100 percent control. I started a decent off one ridge spur that turned into a single-line bomb off the hillside. I tried to get the bike into a turn, but wound up getting tossed. The bike self-arrested instantly (tail of the ski dug right in), but it was so steep that I slid on my back a good 60 feet farther down the hill before I was able to stop. It took a few minutes to get back up to the bike, but I got on and drove away around the side of the spur.
It was like that for the rest of the ride. Up trackless tight ravines, through the big timbers on the ridges, traversing down the open hillsides on the back and racing literally bar-to-bar through tree-littered slopes (Allen likes to dice it out).
So it's not like we were doing what we couldn't do on sleds. We were doing what we wouldn't do on sleds. Riding the other half of the mountain... that's covered in willows, drops into a V-bottom, flanked by walls that are too steep to sidehill, or just woods that look too thick to bother with on sleds.
There are downsides. The bikes don't like hardpack trails. The ski darts and the track fights to stay flat. Fortunately, they are so fun in the willows and saplings right out of the parking lot that you can avoid trails. You wouldn't want to take a bike with a group of sleds, or a sled with a group of bikes. You're just going to be looking at different parts of the mountain, and going at different paces. A sled will cover ground a lot quicker and climb straight up long slopes. But the fun of the bike is hanging back and zig-zagging your way up that stuff anyway. You do a lot of leg lifting, like along long, steep sidehills. You have to suspend your leg to keep it from dragging in the snow. Surprisingly, I wasn't that sore after a day-long ride. It's a brand-new segment, which means that if you are interested, you're going to have to get at least one of your friends to buy one so you have someone to ride with.
Maybe the bikes can go where sleds can't, but sleds can go where bikes can't. But that's not the issue. It was just so dang fun, like how you feel when you explore a new canyon and find a whole new riding spot on sleds. I thought about it for the rest of the weekend. I wanted to get up and go again Saturday. I want to go again now. You don't go out and ride with the mindset you would on sleds. Rather than the rush of horsepower, the bikes have that go-anywhere appeal. It's kind of like single-track dirt biking, only there's not a trail you have to stick to. Go anywhere. The cool factor of being able to creep around the side of crap you wouldn't ever imagine on the Mountain Horse matches the feeling of pulling some insanely technical line through the backcountry on sleds. It's awesome.
There's a ton of pics, so it will take a couple days to edit and post.
Allen on the KTM 690. Chuck and I rode a YZ450F and KX450F.
If you've got a problem with the long post, PM me and pretend I read it.
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