I’ve been mostly riding the fatbike at the end of the road this winter. I have the choice of going 15 minutes downhill to Auburn to ride somewhat dry singletrack with shorts on, or going 15 minutes uphill to the snowpacked road and riding the Rotundcycle on groomers…not a bad place to be! The thing I miss most about Colorado (other than my friends) is the snow, so I’ve been heading uphill most of the time for my rides.
The road gets groomed 4x a week (supposedly) by the Forest Service (paid by OHV fees) and the side routes get packed by snowmobiles. I’ve yet to explore all the side routes since most of them drop up to 8 miles all the way down to one of the American Rivers…but that’s yet to come. The main road can be taken all the way to Donner Pass, if you’re up for riding 40miles on the fatbike. But this road is so packed I’m thinking that my upcoming Knard-tired bike will be the ticket. The 29×3″ tired bikes will be the new fattys, mark my words. Next year, I predict there will be 3.5″ tires for 29ers and 26″ wheeled fatbikes will be less popular than they are today. But hey, what do i know? But maybe just by putting these words out there it’ll help move it along. Either way, I’ll be building frames and forks to fit those yet-to-be-made tires to those that are interested.
Sunday I headed out on the bluebird day from the China Wall staging area and rode out to Robinson Flat, where the Western States Trail meets the road and continues onto towards Foresthill. The campground was totally buried in several feet of snow so I have no idea what this place looks like in the summer months. Only 6 snowmobiles passed as I rode the 14 or so miles out there and 2 of those 6 passed me on the way back. There must be other ways back I don’t know about…hmm!
All in all, i was on the bike for a long 6 hours. Stopping for photos, being slow as snot, and having a slow leak in my rear tube didn’t help my pace, but wow, these backwoods of Northern California are pretty sweet!
There is no snow here and I have been riding Sourdough on my regular bike a few times a week since New Years, you aren’t missing anything, yet (except the SW rides)
I can’t believe it still hasn’t snowed more there. WTF?! Sourdough and Camp D are pretty sweet rides, hard to find singletrack for snowbikes here (so far…).
I’m definitely missing the S*W rides and all you mopes!