I was hoping to put some serious time and miles on the Nokian Extreme 294 studded Ice Bike this weekend. But, House cleaning, warm weather (39°), high winds (20-30 mph) and rain kept me from riding on Saturday.
I was curious to see what the Long Prairie Trail looks like this time of year, (I don't know if it gets plowed) so on Sunday morning after breakfast Sue and I went to Roland Olsen Forest Preserve to take a look.
But, as we got out of the car Sue mentioned that she had never been in the park, so we went for a long hike in the park. The roads are closed and very icy and hazardous to walk. The equestrian and hiking trails were quickly melting with the temperature around 44° and expected to get to 48°. The grass was showing in a couple areas already. And with 20-30 mph winds and a 60% chance of rain, I think it was best to investigate the trail before taking the bike on it.
We had a nice hike until Sue started to feel a little sick.
The half mile or so of Stone Bridge Trail (From the parking lot to the Long Prairie Trail) was pretty hard packed icy snow from the snowmobiles. Perfect for ice biking. But the warm weather made parts of the trail kind of sloppy. It might have been soft enough to feel like riding in sand, which would not be fun.
When I got to the Long Prairie Trail, it looked exactly the same as the Stone Bridge Trail. Apparently snowmobilers don't understand that a picture of a snowmobile with a red line through it means snowmobiles are not allowed on the trail. There is also a huge No Motor Vehicles sign on the kiosk.
The "Stay On Trail Or Stay At Home" sign is rather amusing.
The Stone Bridge Trail does allow snowmobiles, but the signs are a bit confusing since the first sign under the Stone Bridge Trail reads No Motor Vehicles. (!?)
So, no ice biking this weekend. Maybe I'll charge my lights and check out the trail at night. That might be fun. The temperatures are supposed to drop this week, with possible snow on Tuesday and Thursday.
Maybe next weekend.
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  Nice pics here. We have the same problems with quads. The law says no quads on single track. Quad riders hve told me it is their intention to ride single tracks until they arn't single tracks anymore...then it won't be illegal. I am not kidding!
posted by Sagebum on
12/14/2008
at 5:16:14 PM
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 We had the quad conflict in northern Wisconsin. Quads were destroying some of the mountain bike trails until we started building singletrack in 2001 that was too narrow for the quads to ride on. They won't fit between the trees. In fact, one of the first things we do around here is cut 1-3 inches off each end of your handlebar, so your bike will fit between the trees!
With not as many trees in your area, building obstacles (gates, big rocks. log piles, posts) at trail access points is more difficult since they can just ride around them. Unless you can build narrow bench-cut trails on the sides of the hills that they physically can't ride on, it can be tough keeping them out.
The bad thing is, they'll ride the trails until they're so bad they can't even ride them, then they find some other place to ride, and trash.
Shared trail use doesn't really work with MTB and ATV. And XC Ski and Snowmobile. Like the Stone Bridge Trail. I would not ski on a snowmobile trail, way too dangerous.
posted by KrateKraig on
12/15/2008
at 10:09:25 AM
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