Fat Bike Moody

  

Conditions for fat bike riding were excellent today, maybe almost perfect. On Thursday, I rode on the Cave Falls Road. The base was firm, but the surface was rough, like riding on frozen mud. It was really not that much fun. Earlier today, Chris, Tony, and I went for a ride in the Moody area starting at the end of the pavement near Lyon Creek. Like Cave Falls, the base was very solid, but unlike Cave Falls, the Lyon Creek Road had been recently groomed for snowmobiles and the surface was very smooth. In addition, the spur trails were fairly consolidated with surprisingly good traction for climbing. We were able to ride up on the ridge between Lyon Creek and Moody Creek in a couple of places and descend on a series of rollers and whoop-de-dos.

About a mile in, we came upon two college girls in a Honda CRV, stuck deep. Without a shovel and wearing skirts with bare legs and casual shoes, they were poorly prepared for the situation. Although Chris reports they had toilet paper and peaches in the back seat. We made our best effort to push the car to no real avail. Chris and Tony, were quick to realize that the only way to free the car was to jack up the corners and fill the holes where the wheels had been spinning. We used broken branches from some deadfall to provide traction and within fifteen minutes or so rescued the car, turned it around, and sent its owners on their way. We saw plenty of snowmobilers later on, but none when it would have been helpful to us.

For much of the morning we rode through freezing fog which formed a solid ice layer on our glasses and required periodic removal. We had considered riding back up toward Morgan Summit at the intersection of the Lyon Creek Road and the Kelly Canyon Road, but there was no grooming from the intersection to the west so we continued for some distance east, with the grooming presumably continuing all the way to Newdale.

Snow conditions by their very nature are dynamic and variable. And I think more than a few fat bike rides end up being kind of a battle, but today we got lucky.