Ambassador Josh Rizzo checked in with a few of our ambassadors to see what they’re most looking forward to during the winter riding season.
Name: Sandra Beaubien
Location: Ottowa, Canada
What Are You Riding This Winter? I ride a Kona Wo fatbike in the winter on singletrack mountain bike trails. My fatbike is set up more like a mountain bike since it has a front suspension fork and a dropper post.
What Are You Excited For? One thing that really excites me about fatbiking in the winter is our rocky and rooty mountain bike trails get fast and flowy once the snow is packed down. When conditions are perfect it is like riding a luge track!
In Gatineau Park there are some trails that are really waterlogged in the summer so they are winter-only trails and a treat to ride. Fatbiking for me is all about exploring, so I love riding trails in the winter that I can’t ride other times of the year.
Name: Jeff Ashton
Location: British Columbia, Canada
What Are You Riding This Winter? My bike is a Kona Process X that I have set up mullet currently. It’s a super fun bike for slashing around in any condition, and the smaller rear end allows me to play around a ton, especially in slippery conditions like the snow.
What Are You Excited For? I’m excited to get out and get some slippery riding in. I love riding in sketchy conditions like the rain or snow because it really keeps things interesting and SPICY! It’s also fun because I can stick to more mellow trails which are pretty playful and an extra challenge in the snowy conditions.
It’s also so beautiful to ride in the snowy forest, the scenery gets me really stoked as it brings a new light to familiar trail networks. I am hoping to get out regularly early this winter until there is too much snow to ride!
Photo Credit: Ashley Voykin
Name: Annalisa van den Bergh
Location: New York, USA
What Are You Riding This Winter? I have a Sutra SE, which I use for everything from commuting (since I don’t own a car) to bike touring to gravel riding. It’s such a workhorse!
What Are You Excited For? I live in Tucson, Arizona now so it’ll be a mild winter and apparently, a cyclist’s paradise! It doesn’t take long to reach snow here, though. My favorite ride is up 9,171-foot Mount Lemmon which is home to five different ecosystems that you pass through on the 25-mile ride up. There’s a ski resort at the top and someday, I’d love to bike to the top and go skiing. The downhill lasts a never-ending 45 minutes and you can feel the weather change. It’s wild to go from the desert to the alpine tundra and back down to the desert all in one day and all under your own power.
Photo Credit: David Sheppard
Name: Josh Rizzo
Location: Wisconsin, USA
What Are You Riding This Winter: I ride a Kona Rove ST and have always ridden right through the winter. I finally added studded tires a few years ago and it really helps me stay rubber side down.
What Are You Excited About? In the winter, a bunch of guys and I head to a yurt in Northern Wisconsin. It’s right on the world famous American Birkebeiner groomed ski trail. We stay in the yurt during the only weekend of the winter where fatbikes are allowed to ride right on the groomed trails en masse. Winter biking, wood-fired pizzas in Cable Wisconsin, and a yurt in the heart of the Northwoods make it a really memorable weekend. Our trip will be in March and it’ll be the adventure I look forward to most throughout the winter riding season.
Photo Credit: Caleb Moos
