Melting Snow on the Mukluk

Danielle was in the garage where I’d put the Mukluk to thaw after today’s ride and noticed that the melting snow on the front wheel looked pretty nifty, so I took a picture of it.

This comes after an afternoon ride at River Bends where Rodney and I set fatbike tracks through most of the trail and smoothed out the trail for other riders. Jeremy met up with us there as well, but with the 4-8″ of snow on the trail he split off from us a bit earlier and we went on to ride a bit more.

Most of our riding was through deep powder, with a couple of deep, partially-frozen puddles in the newest piece of trail. Trekking through the powder and adding the water from the puddles resulted in quite a bit of heavy buildup on the rims, resulting in buildup like this: 1 · 2.

This was really worth it, as Rodney and I making two passes through each bit of trail ridden was the equivalent of 8 bikes passing over, and this left a 12″-ish wide packed path ready for future riders. There’s still a bit of single track which we didn’t ride, but I’m hoping to get out there in the next day or so to finish the job.

Here’s the complete set of photos from today:

• The Mukluk leaning against the trailhead kiosk at River Bends.
• Jeremy trying out the Mukluk at the end of the Entrance Trail at River Bends.
• Jeremy standing behind a jump which someone has built along the two track at River Bends at the bottom of a hill.
• Snow and ice buildup on the rear wheel after a slow winter ride at River Bends. The dark snow is slush from puddles on the newest piece of trail.
• Different view of the snow and ice buildup on the rear wheel.