Winter is essentially over for most of us and that means the winter toys have to be put away and “summerized” until next year. Most of them, anyways. A new toy has the winter sports world by storm the last couple years, the Snowbike. Companies like Timbersled and others came up with a snow conversion for a dirtbike that replaces the rear wheel with a snowmobile track system, only slightly shorter. The front tire is replaced with a massive ski to help the bike float up on top of the snow. As an avid snowmobiler for almost my life, I was skeptical when these first arrived on the scene. But at this point, there is no denying that these bikes are extremely capable and their drastic increase in popularity means that they won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
One of the competitors in Winter X-Games Snowbike is dirtbike phenom Colton Haaker. He took home the silver medal and ever since he’s been somewhat obsessed with the snowbike conversions and he wasn’t yet ready to pack it in for the summer. So he removed the front ski and replaced it with the normal wheel and took it out to the next most logical place to use this type of machine, the sand dunes.
Haaker went out to the dunes and put his Husquvarna to the test and from what we can see, it handled it pretty damn well. He reported at the end of the day that it was a bit squirrely at times but he was able to keep it under control. Having the track system on the back will likely reduce the overall top speed of the bike compared to having a paddle tire, but with all that extra traction it will also hook up and accelerate harder. Watch Colton shred the dunes and look pretty damn cool in the process. you have to admit, it looks pretty mean.