Whoa, two posts in one day!  Our snowshoe adventure in the previous post actually happened yesterday but I just got around to organizing photos and posting it.  This happened today.  I will be returning to my regular haphazard “schedule” starting in 2021 so don’t go getting used to this twice a day thing.

Some rides just feel more significant than others.  First ride on a new trail, last ride in a certain place, a ride to commemorate a person or event.  Today it was the last ride of the year.  And given the shitshow of a year it’s been it needed to be a memorable one.  With the recent snow still on the ground it would need to be a fat bike ride and I was thinking about something on the Arkansas Hills.   I’ve  taken the fat bike over there before but just on short loops, mainly because a ride on that side of the valley involves a few road miles to get there and I’m still figuring out how far I can push those big tires in different conditions.

The plan was to do what I call the Chicken Dinner loop.  It’s a loop that strings together six different Arkansas Hills trails ending with Chicken Dinner, then crosses the river and Highway 50 to pick up a couple of the Methodist Mountain trails, which drop me back at my front door.  Altogether it’s about 15 miles.  On dry trails on my regular mountain bike it’s a nice two-hour outing.  With the snow I figured it would be more like three.

Frontside trail, nicely packed by hikers

Town from Lil’ Rattler

Backside of S Mountain

Farther up the trail is a little less travelled

Fat bike glamour shot

Deep snow, untracked

Except by me

Sunny ridge

Finally, back down to the river!

It ended up being a bit of a learning experience.  What I learned is that there is a limit to how deep fat bike tires can actually go in snow.  I have ridden in 4 – 6 inches just fine.  But with 8 – 10 inches of fresh powder like we have on the ground right now, things start getting, shall we say, more challenging.  Momentum goes to zero and traction is vague at best even with 4.8” rubber.  Uphills that are easy on dry trails become hike-a-bikes and even downhills require effort.  My estimated three-hour ride ended up being a four-hour slow motion slog.  But I learned a long time ago I’m really happiest when I’m suffering on a bike and with the sun, fresh air and always amazing scenery it was about the nicest form of social distancing I could imagine.  A perfect last ride of the year.

Happy New Year all!