Fatbike Brigade Winter Rando #2: Hobble Creek, Right Fork

It was a nice day for riding yesterday. We met at the parking lot at Jolly’s Ranch up Hobble Creek Canyon. It was a light turn out, to put mildly. Only four showed up at 8:00 am when we planned the ride. Two other riders arrived quite late and were riding up when we were coming down. The road was in good condition and made for nice riding. Part way up to Wardsworth Daryn’s pedal fell off, stripped, so he had to head back to the truck for a wrench. Doc met Jess and I near Wardsworth and told us he was going to turn around and check on Daryn. So Jess and I headed up, and up, and up. Once you get past Wardsworth the canyon opens up quite a bit and gets more exposed. Down in the narrow canyon it was shady, cold, and firm, but up higher it was in full sun and getting soft. There was some hiking as the snow got softer and the grades got steeper. I topped out alone after about 3.5 hours (and a bit over 10 miles). I met Jess on my way down and we continued down together. He was riding a beautiful new Fezzari King’s Peak fatbike. It had an incredible flat blue paint job and was tricked out with Shimano XT components. He was really liking the ride (only his second time on the bike). Back at Soapstone Basin he was riding a loaner demo fatbike from Fezzari while he was waiting for this bike. The descent was fast and fun. I crashed once when I got too close to the edge of the road, hit soft snow and tumbled going pretty fast, but no harm done. It took me only 21 minutes to go from the summit back down to the Wardsworth trailhead, and that included one stop to chat with Jess, and the crash.

Fezzari magic!

Lots of tire clearance and internal cable routing.

Vee Tire Bulldozer 4.7″ tires

Jess riding up, with Doc and Daryn below.

Further down we found Doc and Daryn riding up. Turns out Doc got a flat tire, which delayed them even more. We all rode out together on still pretty firm snow. It was a great ride, 21 miles total with an elevation gain of 2253′. We hope to see more of you next month when we will be doing our third ride in the series up American Fork Canyon at Tibble Fork.