Mountain Biking - Who here builds 'snow' jumps?

Hey guys,

This winter, I am looking to build some jumps in my back yard and jump them with my bike.

I am not really a dirt jumper, but I figure I think on snow, I'd be willing to try it out ;)

How complicated/feasible is it to make jumps out of snow? Will they break easily, or anything. Is it bad for the bike?

Thanks for input!

i think it would be just the same as dirt, except with snow and a lot harder to get traction on. just be sure to clean your bike after so you don't have water from the snow settling in parts. you'll probably have to pack it tight, which will only make it harder like dirt.

I would think it would be easy. But I also think you need a more solid base. Maybe build some up now with dirt and then pack snow onto it.

Make sure you have a good runup and it might be a good idea to use carpets to increase traction. I have never built them but those ideas come to mind first. I would hate to see a good jump collapse :)

Hey guys,

This winter, I am looking to build some jumps in my back yard and jump them with my bike.

I am not really a dirt jumper, but I figure I think on snow, I'd be willing to try it out ;)

How complicated/feasible is it to make jumps out of snow? Will they break easily, or anything. Is it bad for the bike?

Thanks for input!

The thing with snow jumps, in order to get them to stay like that, you need to get the jumps hard, which means to pour water on the snow, which makes the snow turn into ice, so if you screw up and crash it hurts as much if not more than crashing on dirt. If you go through with it, don't make the distances between jumps too close it makes it much more easy to wipeout with that space them out and make sure you either make a set of studded tires or buy a pair of studded tires, if you go along the lines of getting studded tires, look at a pair of Nokians, they make perhaps the best studded tires on the market.

I build snow jumps every year. The key is to form them so you dont use alot of snow. Last year I had this raised area that I tore down and got some huge snow chunks out of there and set them on top of my existing jumps, threw a bunch of snow on it all, put water on that and raked it out. It is easier to take up the space under the jump with hay bails or anything else, but they will definately not fall apart if they are just snow. Good luck, I will have epictures of mine up in the next month when we start getting snow.

It is easiest to use a snow blower, I literally snowblew my whole yard last year to make jumps. Pile stuff up and blow snow all over it, rake out the snow a bit, wait a few hours for it to start to freeze, put a few coats of water on it and use a leaf rake to rake it which makes it have tons of traction. If you follow those steps, you will have a rock hard landing or jump.

I built this one at the end of last season and never got to hit it, I had the other jumps back farther, you can kind of see them but they are really small because we were already tearing them down. When I was building that big jump the snow was kinda wet and I had a few big pieces of plywood I used to form it.
http://intruder.syr.edu:8080/mimtnbiker/Newjump.jpg

Dunno much about this but common sense would say that you will not have much traction on snow, Try putting a peice of chip board or cheap wood, that is rough and grainy, pack this into the snow.... And make sure the snow is packed in tight otherwise it will collapse and you'll look like a walking snowdrift.....

(Walking if your lucky)

Good luck anyways :)

If you let the snow freeze, and put water on it wont collapse. Common sense does say that you wont have traction on snow, but if you have snow with some water on it, and rake it, the rake will throw tiny pieces of snow all over and make the surface very grippy. Just make sure it dosent all turn to ice, then you are in trouble.

If you can ride real fast along the street for speed, then hit the snow jump you save a lot of time, no carpets or trying to pack the snow to you can get traction.