The Rise of The Snowbike
There has been a winter sport that has been brewing under the surface for a few years now, and is set to explode on the scene properly this season.The sport of snowbiking takes place on a normal piste and involves traveling down the mountainside on a modified push-bike. The idea was conceived over 50 years ago, but people found that using a conventional bike was ineffective and rather dangerous. Over the years many snowboard and ski enthusiasts have been working on newer designs in the hope of discovering something that worked. After years of trial and error, and a few accidents, a snowbike design was finally conceived that was both functional and practical.
The best snowbike on the market is produced by a Canadian company, and they are so confident that the sport will be a huge hit, that they are arranging the first even world championship for 2010. Rather than being built for tricks or jumps, snowbikes are normally purpose-built for control and carving ability. This will be reflected in the world championship events that will be based around slalom and speed competitions. Unsurprisingly, the best snowbikes available today take heavy influence from powered snowmobiles. They are lower to the ground than normal bikes and have a blade at the front of the bike attached to the steering column. This gives the rider much better steering control, but only one blade is needed as snowbikes are a lot lighter and do not travel as fast as snowmobiles.
Snowbike manufactures admit that snowbiking is not the easiest of extreme sports to master, but that it is well worth putting in the hours to master. Apparently learning how to snowbike shares similarities with learning to ride normal mountain bikes. The learning curve is pretty steep, but when you got the hours of practice under your belt, its not something that you’ll ever forgot how to do. You can get the snowbikes in a variety of sizes, including smaller bikes for children. There are also multiple extras now, such as stabilisers, headlights and even horns.
Given the nature of many daredevil snowboarders and skiers, it is likely that some will attempted the most difficult mountain runs on the snowbikes without much practice, something not advised by snowbike manufactures or ski resort owners. Snowbikes are much harder to stop than snowboards or skis, and if you haven’t mastered the technique you will not only be risking your own safety, but you may be endangering the safety of other winter sports enthusiasts also.
Certain American ski resorts in fact have prohibited snowbikers on their slopes until more is known about the safety of the things. The majority of locations however are understanding to snowbikers, but still suggest that everyone is careful until we know just how safe they are. Whatever resorts think of the bikes, with a reported 30,000 snowbikers worldwide, this one seems like a trend that is going to stick (or slide as the case may be).