I have been spending a lot of time on the snow bike and not much time on the skis. This is bit unusual for me – normally this time of year I spend almost all my outside play time on skis, and has got me thinking a bit about the differences between snow biking and skiing. There is a local 30 mile loop made by combining two local trails, the Eldorado Creek trail and Oconner Creek trails with a a couple of random connector trails that start at the door of my house. Its a pretty fun loop, with a bit of altitude gain and a long downhill.
If you live in the area these trails are well worth exploring – lots of good skiing and biking, with enough variation in the trails to keep things interesting.
The two main trails are connected at the top by some trails run along the power lines that run near Old Murphy Dome road at the top..
And the Goldstream Trail at the bottom.
The Goldstream Trail is often the coldest part of this loop, and can have some very funky cloud and inversion formations.
I take a couple of smaller trails to get to the start of the loop, including a trail called the “Dredge Swath” trail, which was originally a trail made to haul gold dredges from Ester to the some mines along Goldstream Creek. For a long time I thought folks were calling it the “Dread Swath”… perhaps because I am hearing comprehension impaired. I did spend some time thinking about what was dreadful about it though..
This loop has become my default bike or ski route when I am looking for a longish day trip. On skis it takes about 7 hours, on a bike it takes between three and a half to four and half hours. I do this loop once or twice a week, and it is very fun. On a bike do the loop in a counter-clockwise manner to I can ride up the less steep climb on the Oconner Creek Trail, and down the much steeper Eldorado Creek trail. When skiing I do it the other way – ski up the steeper section and down the less steep hills.
Hills feel very different on the bike vs the ski – on a bike long downhills are very cold as the only thing I have to do is ride the brakes. On skis downhills require quite a bit of lower leg effort which keeps me nice and warm even for long cold downhills. Going up on the bike is a lot more work, mainly because the more effort I put in the faster I go, while on skis there is not much more reward for expending extra effort, so I tend to just cruse. This means I can really wipe myself out on the bike, yet never really seem to get tired while skiing. I am sure if my ski form was better, or if I could skate things would be a bit different.. but with my current skiing form its hard to get wore out.
Other surprising differences include how easy it is to duck under low hanging branches while skiing and how hard it is to dodge those branches while biking.
Bikes are a lot more complicated mechanically than skis are, which means the chance of breaking something is a alot higher. I have not had any troubles so far, but perhaps I have been lucky. The worst thing that has happned to me so far is icy brakes, which look pretty troublesome, but still work fine.
Skiing is much faster when the snow is soft, but when the snow is cold and hard it much faster to bike… both ways are fun though.
Its hard to face-plant on skis, but its happens amazingly fast on a snow bike. Several times now I have been zooming along on a snow machine trail only to punch though in front and have a over the bars experience.
Overflow is fun on a bike and skis, though in different ways. On skis it is pretty easy and fast to double pole though frozen or wet overflow, so long as you can slow down enough when required. With metal edges slowing down is no problem. On a bike overflow is pretty fun, however it is a lot easier to slip on the ice on a bike when the ice is hard and smooth. Wet or textured overflow is no problem on the bike, as the texture gives lots of traction. The bike does not ice up much, unlike skis, so once you are off the overflow happiness returns and there are no “memories of overflow past” in the form of slow iced ski bottoms.
Enough randomness for now, hope everyone is having a good weekend!
