Old Man Winter is upon us. Time to put the bikes to sleep... or do you?

It's that time of year again when Old Man Winter awakes from his slumber to test our Canadianness (or Northern-Hemisphereness) by oppressing us with his cold arctic winds and cranky shortened days.

If you find that interpretation too bleak then good, you pass the Canadiana test. Most likely this means that yes, while putting the bikes to sleep for 4-5 long months is sad, you are happy to do it because of the myriad of great activities that winter brings with it: snowmobiling, skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, skating, and dog-sledding to name a few.

But wait... why can't motorbiking be included in that list? I'm sure that this is precisely the question that was asked when a few individuals and companies created this:

Lately, I've been seeing more and more similar retro-fit bolt-on kits for dirt bikes that can allegedly make your bike snow and winter capable without having to resort to putting in screws into your tires. These kits essentially turn your bike into a snowmobile, swapping the front tire for a ski and the rear tire for a rubber track. As far as I can tell, these kits are exclusively made for dirt bikes as I suspect it will be a long while before any sane government will permit these on the road.

The first time I saw one of these in the wild was earlier this year in Kelowna, BC for some snowboarding:

These kits look great - for the most part they simply bolt on and require little to no modifications and is an innovative way to repurpose your dirt bike. Unfortunately, they will likely set you back a pretty penny - anywhere from $3k-5k USD. The Timersled Mountainhorse setups that you see in the above two pictures are more than $5k USD.

That said, here are links to some of these creative geniuses:

Timbersled

Snoxcycle

2moto

If you have one of these kits or have ridden a similarly equipped snowbike, let us know what it's like and how it compares to snowmobiling.

-Larry