On Sunday Feb. 10th the snow started falling in earnest. Not a particularly usual occurrence for Victoria although it has snowed in February the last 2 years as well. It’s rather a bit odd to see cherry blossoms surrounded by falling snow but that’s Victoria for you! Between Sunday and Tuesday we received a record breaking amount of snowfall for February, around 5-6 inches at our Wharf Street storefront and 6-8 inches at our home out in Saanich. And of course we had to brave the weather and head out to test the snow on the fat e-bikes!

Fully suited up with face covers, coats, extra pants and of course our Gobi heated glove liners we grabbed a Spirit Bear and one of our rental 500 XTs, aired the tires down a little (actually too much) and headed out. With the snow blowing in our eyes we set out on the trails. We quickly found riding on the hard packed snow (like on side streets that don’t get plowed) to be the easiest and perhaps the most fun. Both the Spirit Bear and 500 XT had excellent traction on the packed snow, I only spun out a little one time trying to start off on a slight hill. One thing we did find is that neither of them fared particularly well in the deep unpacked snow, cutting right through and in our case getting bogged down by how deep it was (up to the axles on the 500 XT and nearly there on the Spirit Bear). This made it pretty easy to get hooked into the snow, and unless prepared to really push into it you weren’t going far. Thankfully the trails we were on had a narrow well packed area, although terribly uneven from people tramping it down, which resulted in a pretty good arm workout due to the rough ride. On the 500 XT I sure was wishing to be on the new 2018 model with suspension! The Bear, having front suspension, fared a bit better. Both the 500 XT and Spirit Bear had plenty of power to assist us on this snowy ride, although we didn’t tap in too much as the snow was already blowing into our eyes enough. In total we went just about 6 km, but it sure felt like more!

All in all despite the cold and the snow blowing in our eyes we had a blast getting out on the fat e-bikes and enjoying Victoria’s 2019 Snowpocalypse!