Supporting Cycling In and Around Fredericton
Riders – River Valley Cycling is really excited about winterbike for 2023. It’s been 10 years since the first fat bikes started rolling around town. We’ve just rolled out our winter memberships so go ahead and join RVC for the winter season!
To celebrate, we are sharing a winterized redesign of our logo from the talented volunteer Christina Tracy!
We were nervous when there was no snow in early January… but looking back we had nothing to worry about. The winter of 2023 delivered some spectacular riding.
With the rain on the way we’ve decided to call it a season and look forward to riding dirt. We wanted to send out a huge thanks to everyone who made RVC’s winter riding memorable this year:
So, with the seasons in transition the next few weeks may still yield some great riding on the packed snow base as it melts out. Put your ice-spiker tires on! This year we don’t expect any trails to be open for dirt riding until May so look for RVC to launch our 2023 summer membership campaign then.
RVC grooms with machines that drag grooming gear at MVP and Woolastook – but that’s not what we’re going to talk about here. This is all about ‘shoe-to-ride‘ – the way fatbiking started in Fredericton.
If you are just getting started with winter riding you’re probably just learning about what kind of snow your fatbike can handle. We spent some time discussing that in our post about tires and air pressure if you’re interested. A fatbike can cut through about 5 cm of fresh soft snow – any deeper and some purposeful grooming is needed to make a ridable surface.
Grooming transforms snow through working it. We want to pack it down in a way that makes a level tread. When snow gets adequately compressed and is given a chance to ‘set up’ (i.e. re-freeze overnight), it can support a rider. Snowshoes make a great riding surface and we rely on snowshoe traffic to ride many winter trails where the terrain is too rough to groom with mechanized equipment – or we don’t have the permission to do so. Odell Park is a prime example.
Sometimes it can take a lot of traffic and set-up time to get a good result – depending on the type and amount of snow that the weather brings. Five centimeters of high-moisture snow might be directly rideable right after the storm ends but 30cm of dry powder is going to take a lot of work. Sugar snow and ice pellets tend to be the worst. It’s typical for Fredericton to get 10-15 cm of snow during a winter storm and if you’d like to help us get trails into shape here’s what you should know:
New riders tend to underestimate just how much snowshoe traffic is needed in order to make a trail fatbike ready. One or two passes with snowshoes isn’t going to cut it for a typical 15 cm snowfall but five or six passes can work wonders. After that – nothing makes better winter trails than fatbike traffic!
RVC would love to have a few committed snow-farmers who can lead up some purposeful snowshoe grooming at Odell park and other trailheads. So, if you love fatbiking and snowshoeing beautiful trails freshly after a storm we’d love to hear from you. This is just about the easiest way you can help maintain winter trails.
If you’re psyched about fatbike than remember to support RVC Winterbike with your membership!
Riders!
It might be raining today but planning for the 2023 Winterbike season continues. It will snow! Your Winterbike membership supports trail grooming at several locations in the Fredericton area. Here’s our plan for Woolastook.
This year RVC groomers will keep a little more than 9 km of trail open at Woolastook. The layout here will let riders plan out routes using stacked loops so lots of distance options will be available. You’ll want to build up to a full distance ride though because the winter lookout is worth it. We won’t tell anyone if we see you pushing your bike up the last bit of that steep hill up to the lookoff – we promise.
Mike Hutchinson, RVC’s vice president and Woolastook project lead will do some heavy lifting this winter and plans to groom regularly. From time to time he may get a little help from Dave & Andy. Give these guys a huge thanks if you are out and you run into them. Grooming snow for fatbike is a tough job and volunteering is how it all happens!
This grooming plan is what you can expect RVC will keep open for the duration but from time to time we’ll probably be able to enjoy a few other pieces of singletrack opened up by volunteer snowshoers. If you want to update your Trailforks app the winter mode map is now up to date.
Remember, you can join RVC Winterbike right now for 2023! This year we’ve kept our winter membership price the same despite our cost of running the equipment going way up. We hope you enjoy and we appreciate your support.
We just got our first dump of snow this weekend. RVC is excited for Winterbike. You’re excited. Undisputed RVC Grooming Champion Dan Breau messaged us today to say he’s excited for another winterbike season! We’re all ready!
So what better day than to tell you about the grooming plan for MVP this winter!
For 2023 MVP will have ~ 22 km of groomed singletrack. This is basially the same network that was groomed last year. For you riders who have never ventured over to ride Greg’s Way in the summer make sure to go check it out in the winter. The Back 40 is a game changing connection and it open’s up access to the Greg’s way area. Back 40 is a hilariously good trail in it’s own right. We’ll keep the parking lot open all winter so that you don’t have to brave narrow slushy roads to get to the riding. We fixed up the water issue that turned the parking lot into a skating rink last year so fingers crossed (thanks Norm and Bev)! We’ll also keep the Trailforks map up to date but remember to hit the ‘winter trails’ option on the map and you may need to refresh the data on your phone app.
MVP mountain biking trailsKeeping 22 km of singletrack groomed takes a lot of resources and a heroic effort from the groomers! This winter if you see the sleds out while on the trails make sure you stop them to say thanks!
You can get your 2023 RVC Winterbike membership here to access the trails and support the grooming. Also, if you love winter trails and want to consider giving something more you have the option to take out a gold-level supporter membership. All the perks of a normal membership plus that satisfying feeling that comes with making an extra donation. Thank you!
