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Bikes. Parts. Chaos.

Left side view of a tan Surly Moonlander fat bike, leaning against the tailgate of a pickup, in a paved parking lot spot

Yesterday was the last day to ride the trails around here.  We had a week of near average high temps that melted a pretty good chunk of the snowpack but the trees were still holding on to a good amount of snow.  With the below freezing highs coming to an end, the trail groups were closing up shop until summer.  That brings us to Tuesday afternoon, all of my stuff was finished for the day and I needed to get in some test riding before it was too late.  This would be a solo mission as the rest of the engineering team was knee deep in development muck.

I pulled into the parking lot to about 3 other cars.  It was vaguely reminiscent of closing day at a ski resort; only a few wierdos were still hanging on to less than ideal trail conditions. 

Count me in!

 I asked one of the guys in the parking lot how the trails were…”a little mud, a little ice, otherwise pretty good.”  Sounded pretty alright to me so I took off like a bat out of hell.

A snow covered road, in the woods with bare trees, with photoshopped text and arrows pointing to a spot in the snow

 

Well, he wasn’t kidding about the little bit of ice.  It was just hiding under a dusting of snow.  I laid into the first corner and went down pretty good, almost kissing a stump.  I let some pressure out of the front tire so It could only go uphill from there.  Turns out the trail was still in pretty good shape and flowed almost as well as it does in the summer.  Granted I had a little more meat to haul around (5” tires and the winter spare tire around my middle).  The ride ended like it began with a crash on the ice, but it was surprisingly awesome for the last snow trail ride of the year. 

Now mountain biking purgatory begins…But get out there and ride what you can.Rear view of a tan Surly Moonlander fat bike, leaning against a tree, facing down a snowy trail in the woods

About Slippers Cortez

Ben Jungbauer a.k.a. Slippers Cortez

Well hello there, meet Ben, aka Slippers Cortez. Ben is one of the Engineers here at Surly. When Ben isn’t doing bike math and drawings, he’s likely enjoying a beer and playing the mandolin with his brothers in their folk/bluegrass band, The Thirsty River. If you don’t know what a mandolin is, there’s a google for that. If you meet Ben, you’ll notice that he’s the most Minnesotan person you know. We mean that in the best of ways of course. So the next time you're straddling your Surly, think of Ben, because he just might be thinking about you too.