in Trailbuilding and Advocacy

So I think we are learning a lot in a hurry about what it takes to properly prepare and maintain snow biking trails this year. Kind of a perfect confluence of lots of us finally taking the plunge for our new Fat Bikes, a once every few year storm, and on top of that it is the very first storm of the year.

This thread is my attempt to help get some of these ideas in words, and hopfully help spread the knowledge learned so we can all make better trails to ride. Here is what I think we have learned:

1. I think the biggest lesson is that when the snow is so deep that you are truly riding/floating on snow, not just snow with the solid ground base under it, it really changes what it takes to prep a trail. In a normal storm of 3-4" you can get out and just ride the trail in with no problems. People will take different tracks, hikers and snowshoers will also use the trail, the trail will get widened out, and you will have a nice wide track to ride in a short time. Really deep single-event snows are different.
2. If we are getting a big snow we have to make an effort to get out and stomp the trails. For maximum effect this should be done while the snow is still wet and packs well. Often a storm will follow a similar sequence like the last one. Wet heavy snow falling. Followed by cold. If we can get the trails stomped while the snow is still wet, they will freeze solid and make a beautiful trail to ride on. Just think about the difference of riding a nice solid 2' wide path versus riding a 4" packed rut like we are trying to do now. I would almost call this snow trail damage.
3. When it gets warm is the time to "repair" or improve the snow trails. Tomorrow is such a day. 30 degrees and possible light snow or drizzle. Things should pack really well. I am going to try and get out on the shoes tomorrow to stomp some new trail and hopefully improve some already ridden trail. Hopefully a great trail will be ready on Christmas day when the cold sets back in. We will see how it goes.
4. With a standard mountain bike I have had fun on snow trails as well. But these were well packed trails and it was well below freezing. Trials will soften and be an issue for a sub 4" tire above about 20 degrees with sunshine. With warm temps and sun the trails will get soft and you have the potential to leaving ruts behind to freeze solid. Best to ride in the dark, or a day when it is really cold.

Anyway these are my thoughts on this whole fat-bike-riding-in-the-snow-craziness. Have you made other observations or think I am off on mine? What about you lucky few who were riding fatties in previous seasons?

My semi-informed observation.

All the hard work in making a nice, packed trail can be undone in minutes by one hiker on a warm day. I experienced the results of this at Blue Mound a couple of winters ago. Riding over the post holes left by a hiker was no fun at all.

It might be worth the effort to put up a sign asking people to stay off the trail when it's above freezing.

Walt

My semi-informed observation.

All the hard work in making a nice, packed trail can be undone in minutes by one hiker on a warm day. I experienced the results of this at Blue Mound a couple of winters ago. Riding over the post holes left by a hiker was no fun at all.

It might be worth the effort to put up a sign asking people to stay off the trail when it's above freezing.

Walt

Good input Walt. I was starting to form the same opinion on hikers as well Walt. I may regret opening our trails up to all other users in the winter, and not just snowshoer's. A sign may help. I am also wondering whether it will make a difference with heavily traveled trails, and if fat tires will minimize the issue of ruts and post holes by either narrow tires or hikers post-holing?
If so I may try to work with Parks and possibly open only the new trail up to all users, but have the rest of the trails open to only bikers and snow shoers? That trail closest to Cambridge should get the most heavy use. And the rest of the trails will see less foot traffic. The prairies on the Cannonball Connector will also see the deepest snowpack, and therefore will be most prone to post-holing.

In my experience, the most important thing to packing in trails and making them rideable (for fat bikes anyway) is lot and lots of traffic. It doesn't matter what kind of traffic, bike, ski's, snowshoes, just regular hikers/runners, you just need traffic to mush the snow together and down or push it of the trail.

Second, I'd like to reiterate that singletrack trails are not the only place to ride a fat bike. Frozen lakes, streams and rivers work (for the flowing water its best to know the river/stream well so you know where weak spots in the ice might be).

And then there are snowmobile trails. Though I don't think bikes are technically allowed on the snowmobile trail network that crosses private land and such. However, they can't kick us of the Badger Trail, the Glacial Drumlin Trail and the Military Ridge Trail. These trails are already really well groomed and ready to ride. Always yield the way to the snowmobiles, you can hear them coming a mile away so its not hard to do. I always also assume they are all completely loaded, so if I can I will yield the way behind a tree or something. To be honest, I often ride on the non-state-trail portions of the snowmobile network, again just show proper respect to the motor heads and I have never had a problem, just friendly waves or indifference.

Having both my front yard as a snowmobile trail and singletrack in a park close at hand. They are both interesting rides. Never had a problem either but always feel I am on their territory. And a whole different experience to be on open fields going from bar to bar (where all of the trails lead around here. Much different to be out on a narrow trail along the creek or through the woods. Both have their benefits, but my preference for the latter. Streams I feel are very iffy any time of year around here. It just does not get cold enough. The creek here is still not frozen over and it is barely moving and very low with the drought. Normal year it never does freeze. Much better on ponds and lakes. Just follow the ice fishermen.

For big mileage in the future we may want one of those groomers though. I would love to find out what others are using to pack trails. Snowshoeing is essentially hiking. So I don't know that it is realistic to expect to stomp 11 miles of trail. Especially with the majority of people living 1/2 hour away from the trailhead. Or we may just try and focus on a certain section of trail to keep packed? Not sure of all the answers yet. Though this is a very abnormal year with our first snow of the year being a blizzard with 18" of snow. That is a lot to get packed all at once, followed by cold temps that make the snow not pack well.  I think a very different story if it came in several 3" snow falls like a normal year.

RE snowmobile trails: What I love about it is that you get to see a part of the landscape you never get to see from the road. Yesterday I was out riding SW of Verona and the track went up to the top of Observatory Hill. This is a classic road ride but never been up there in the winter. Then it headed west, and as it turns out, Observatory Hill is a ridge that is high above the landscape for a couple miles west from where the road crosses. Views for miles. I also got to ride along side the Sugar River and crossed it maybe 6 times, passed through old pastures with ancient bur oaks, it was great. Always sure to give the snowmobile the complete right of way though. Just about everyone that passed waved, had a short chat with a small crew that were taking a break. No one seemed to mind that I was there and as long as snow bikers are considerate and our numbers are fairly low, I think it will stay that way.

As for trail grooming, I was thinking about it, and I think if we could get permission to put a snowmobile down the trail it could pack about 90% of the trail for us in an hour or so, leaving just a few section we would have to stomp through. First we need a snowmobile I guess, and then we could easily put together a cheap plastic sled with a couple hundred pounds of sand bags on it to really pack down the trail behind the snowmobile. One pass and a night for the trail to 'set-up' and it should be good to go... I think.

I realize that, as a trail building club, everyone is really excited about getting to extent the trail maintenance season into the winter, but keep in mind that this last storm was a big exception to the typical snowfalls that we'll have to deal with.   For the couple of inches of snow that is far more common to this area all we need is a couple of bikes to roll through to get the trail started, and if it approaches 6 inches then one or two people on snow shoes is normally enough to get the trail ready.  I like the idea of some kind of a grooming device (like a weighted sled) that one person could reasonably drag using snow shoes, but I don't think we need to be talking about snowmobiles or special rules about when a trail should be ridden on unless 6"+ snow falls start to become more common.

I realize that, as a trail building club, everyone is really excited about getting to extent the trail maintenance season into the winter, but keep in mind that this last storm was a big exception to the typical snowfalls that we'll have to deal with.   For the couple of inches of snow that is far more common to this area all we need is a couple of bikes to roll through to get the trail started, and if it approaches 6 inches then one or two people on snow shoes is normally enough to get the trail ready.  I like the idea of some kind of a grooming device (like a weighted sled) that one person could reasonably drag using snow shoes, but I don't think we need to be talking about snowmobiles or special rules about when a trail should be ridden on unless 6"+ snow falls start to become more common.

Kind of what my thoughts were on a grooming machine Rich. But we are a week out from the big storm and I was busting new trails on what are normally the main trails at CamRock yesterday. I guess I am wondering if having a group of folks stomping/snowshoeing the trails in is realistic. It means a day not riding and it seems folks are not willing to do that, at least at this point. Or maybe this is just the exitement of a new snowbiking season and everyone is just to excited to get their shiny new fat bike toys out and ride. I will admit to being guilty of that. In my heart I knew I should be out shoeing during the storm, but how often do you get an opportunity to go on a ride during a blizzard

As I mentioned the other option is to just have a small portion of the trails open and call it good enough when the snow gets deep. I am with you that this last snowfall is very unusual, and normally the trails can just be ridden in. Like if we get the predicted 2-4' predicted for tomorrow, I would see no reason to stomp the sections that are hard packed now.  But then again unusual seems to be the norm lately. Either very little snow like the last two years, or lots of snow and it stays around for months. This being the fun of Wisconsin weather it could always rain next week and make all this discussion mute for now.

Not sure about the weighted sled idea. I would think to be effective it would need to be heavier than a person can reasonably pull. A snowmobile weighs upwards of 800 pounds. I don't own a mule to do that kind of pulling, and I am not for hire

I dunno, I think we get a lot of heavy snows. I have owned a home in Madison for 5.5 winters now, and in that time I am sure we have gotten at least 10 snowfalls greater than 6", because I have had to shovel all of them off the driveway. Global warming modeling suggests that we will get more of these big dump snowstorms going forward.

I would agree that we should be careful not to put too much effort into it, because it will all be melted away in 2-3 months (or 2-3 weeks!?). Any trail grooming should either be fun, or easy or both. I am sure a lot of people wouldn't mind putting in a little effort, but how much can one guy accomplish in 1-2 hours? If we had a snowmobile hit a lot of the trail it would make an hour here or there by people on snowshoes a pretty quick, easy way to finish things off.

I was thinking of just a cheap plastic sled with twelve 50# sand bags strapped down in it towed behind a snowmobile, preferably attache with poles like the http://forums.mtbr.com/fat-bikes/tips-trail-prep-heavy-snow-830327.html sled in this thread.  At least I think you could fit that many sandbags in a sled. We provide the sled and hopefully find an operator who will do it for a 6-pack. One pass, let it set up overnight and it would be done. Maybe we don't even need the sled, but in my experience a single snowmobile track is not a great bed to ride on. There would have to be careful planning by people who know the trails well and someone who's very familiar wit ha snow mobile to decide what sections can be covered by a snow machine and how they would bail out to another section and go around the twisty/narrow sections.

Or a snowshoer could probably tow 200lbs worth? in a sled... and get it packed in a single pass.  Found this product too http://www.humanpoweredtrailgrooming.com/fat-tire.html

The other option would be CORP sponsoring the Cambridge High School cross-country team, giving them a bunch of snowshoes and then convincing them that snowshoing on the trails is the best possible training for their spring season. We just have to work on our sales pitch a bit.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against grooming with a snowmobile or whatever but based on riding out there the last few years it's would be overkill for anything under a 6" snowfall.  Now the exception to that is the prairie sections, they get the full brunt of the snowfall and the additional gift of drifting snow, if we could run over those with a snowmobile soon after anything more than a dusting then it would be a quick way to add useable miles and link it all together. I'm not sure that the weighted sled would be necessary, the weight of the snowmobile and rider seem to be enough to do the job and could fit through tighter areas.

Sure, less than 6" we can just ride it in. But we have 15" on the ground now, so how do we prep that? I think we can expect an average of 1-4 storms per year going forward with >6" of snow. How are we going to handle it? I'm also kind-of wondering how we're going to handle late winter when things get icy.... I don't think there's much/anything we can do other than find some studded tires.

In the end, I'm just a guy who will help out with the stomping on occasion. So whatever you local trail maintenance leaders want to do I and others will follow along.

Looking at the trail map, I think a snow mobile could do everything between the Rockdale Roundabout to the start of the Outback trail cluster, and back again. Snowmobile could also do the upper field. It could run on the double track between the two. Obviously could also do the new Creekside trail as well. It would up to stompers to do  the "classic" trails and the Outback cluster. That seems like a lot more doable to me.

Here's an ex-snowmobiler's take - I grew up riding them and I sold mine a few years ago because they don't make much sense in this climate.

Breaking a trail in 12+ inches of fresh snow results in a lot of spinning, not a nice packed trail. You need to hit snow that deep with speed and momentum to make it through the really deep drifted areas. Typically, you never stop. If you need to, you drive in a circle and stop in your previous track or else when you start out again you will just spin in place, sink, and have to start digging yourself out.

One pass will give you a very loose 16" wide trail, with the skis busting it out to 40+. You need to take at least 2-4 passes over the same track to pack it in for a nice surface. That is all you would need to do, pulling extra weight on a sled is not needed. This is good news, just get someone out there with a sled to ride it for us!

Pulling a sled with a regular snowmobile is not a good idea anyway for a bunch of reasons. Regular snowmobiles just aren't designed for this use, and they can't put the torque to the ground. If they do get the traction, the belt gets highly abused and the belt has to be replaced every 20-40 miles with this abuse, instead of every 500-1,500 miles with normal use (belts cost $30-90 and can be replaced in 5 minutes with no tools).
 
Jeff

How about one of these... 2 Wheel drive motorcycle

http://www.rokon.com/1_4_Trail-Breaker.html

I think after the ride at blue mounds and from talking to Gomez from fat-bike.com at the Kettles today snow shoeing seems to be the preferred method and seems to work just fine.  Blue Mounds is a huge snow shoe destination and the kettles is the kettles. Dane County parks site should perhaps list camrock as a snow shoe park. Perhaps there are other ways to spread the word as well?

Perhaps there are other ways to spread the word as well?

I think Cam-Rock sports should sponsor the Cambridge Cross-Country Team. Tell them that snowshoeing is the best possible training for the spring season. Give them free snowshoe rental and let em rip! 

I think this is the week for packing things down. A lot of warm days, to soften things up and make it easy to pack down.