Snow Ride 101

A story about our "snow ride" up on Vedder Mountain. One local overcomes his fears by hitting the well known "40" footer in the snow.

It was cold, that's pretty much the best way to describe Vedder Mountain on Sunday(January 27th). Justin and I headed up Vedder Mountain in Chilliwack to ride the trail "Dilemma" in the snow.We picked Justin up from his house and headed straight to Vedder. My father was a little less than optimistic about driving up Vedder Mountain's unpaved forest road in 5 cm of untouched powder. Look up the word rough in the dictionary and you will see a little picture of the road up Vedder Mountain. Add any amount of snow and it becomes tough to get up that road. On our way up our 4by4 Chevy truck started sliding and nearly went off the road. So Justin and I grabbed our bikes and started to hike up.

We got to the trail:

Justin was riding his newly purchased bike off of Ben Boyko:

And I was riding my little hardtail with street tires mostly because I was shooting the stills.

We started down the trail. Riding in snow is completely different terrain. The trail is hard to follow, the corners are greasy and the ladders are slick. Just adds more challenge and therefore more fun. Justin charged right off the bat and started hitting everything he normally hits on a run but in about 2-5 centimeters of snow, depending upon where you are on the trail.


After lots of shooting we finally arrived at the "40" footer. I know what a lot of you Pinkbiker's are saying. "Oh that gap isn't 40 feet, I can see on the picture." Well, looks are deceiving people. The gap size MEASURED to tranny officially is 36 and a half feet.

So with that said Justin knew he wanted to hit it, but I didn't know what problem the snow would cause. Justin tells me at the top of the run in, "Get your camera out, we'll see what happens" So I get setup and yell at him it's clear. Justin hits the first jump into the "40", pedals and drifts across the normally rocky berm, pedals a few strokes in, and right before take off his bike skips, but luckily doesn't cause a problem.

Here's what it looked like:

I know it may not seem overly exciting to you, but I have never seen such a crazy stunt hit in the snow. The jump would be considered unrideable for most. But Justin bravely sent the gap. It proves that you can hit anything you put your mind too. As long as you are using you head. So get out there with your mountain bike and try a snow ride.

Here are some of the other shots we took during our snow ride.

Check out my album if you want more.
Have fun riding this winter and keep the rubber side down.

LMM

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