By David MacDonald
How’d you like to be dashing through the snow on a 50+ horse power Honda CRF450F dirt bike with a Trax Mountain snow bike kit installed? I’ll confess, it lacks the melody of Pierpont’s original Jingle Bells, but it’s a lot more fun than carolling. This version has a verse about “the industry leading ForkSafe ski mounting system that allows you to use any of the snow bike skis on the market, including the newly developed Carve Ski from Moto Trax.” Like I said, it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but man does it fly through the powder!
If this is your first time seeing a snow bike, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. That’s a dirt bike in the snow. Who’d put a modified snowmobile track and a ski on a dirt bike, you ask? Simple. Someone who didn’t want to put their dirt bike away for the winter, that’s who.
Jacob Stevens, the Marketing Manager at Moto Trax in Moscow, Idaho, told me that “the only hard and fast rule at this company is that you have to have some kind of passion for riding dirt bikes. From our founders, to our office managers, to our custodians, you’ll find riders.”
Stevens said it’s not uncommon for every employee with mechanical training to put down what they’re doing at the end of the day and get their hands greasy in the shop.
“I love getting away from the computer or the phone for a while and working alongside our founder and primary owner, Randy Gentry,” Stevens explained. “He has a passion for bikes and riding like nothing I’ve ever seen. He’s been dabbling with snow bikes since he was in high school and completed his first designs in 2005-2006. He told me he always hated putting his dirt bike away in the winter. After eight years of tinkering, he met a group of guys when he was a student at the University of Idaho who helped him make his designs a reality. That combined passion was really the big takeoff for us. When Randy knew there were other passionate riders who wanted the bike experience in the winter there was no looking back for him,” Stevens explained.
When we spoke, Stevens had recently returned from the AIMExpo (American International Motorcycle Expo) in Orlando, Florida. It’s not the first time he’s represented snow bikes at an expo. “Booth 2537 was a popular one, that’s for sure,” he laughed. “Snow bikes are still somewhat of a new arrival. The first major snow bike company only started in 2007 and we’ve only been officially on the scene since our incorporation in early 2015. So you can imagine that riders are curious.”
“Basically the first company on the scene was 2Moto,” Stevens continued.”They introduced the first after-market conversion kits to the market. They recognized the same thing that riders like Randy had: dirt bikers want a snowmobile conversion system that can take them into more versatile conditions, into trees, into tight areas. That’s kind of how this got its start. Experience mixed with imagination. It’s a combo that’s clearly meeting a lot of demand, too, recreationally and commercially. Timbersled, another company that was just about first on the scene, has since been acquired by Polaris and that seems to be trend in the industry right now. Companies that already have their start in the snowmobile industry are supplementing their product lines. We feel we have a better foundation. It’s our passion for dirt biking that inspired our designs. Up until Moto Trax came along, snow bikes had never really been able to go on trails. They were using modified snowmobile suspension and that made it inherently difficult to ride hard-pack conditions like a trail. Our technology has revolutionized the whole snow bike experience. Our snow bikes behave much more like a dirt bike and can handle the hard pack snow trail systems throughout North America. You’re going to get more ?Moto’ out of the whole experience on one of our bikes.”
The Moto Trax drive train is “drastically more efficient, which allows our kits to work well on 250 four strokes and 125 two strokes,” Stevens explained. “This means that more riders can experience snow bikes.” Fit kits are also available for Beta, Honda, Husqvarna, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha, and KTM bikes.
Special orders can be made online or over the phone.
With the trio of full snow bike conversion kits offered by Moto Trax, there is something for every kind of rider and every kind of snow.
The Trax Mountain snow bike kit mentioned above includes your choice of 129″ or 137″ track; front ski assembly (Ski and ForkSafe Ski Mount); Gold REGINA X-Ring Chain; custom-tuned mountain version of the Moto Trax Premium FOX IFP shock; 2.7 Gallon (10 Litre) Quick-fill standard gas can; and your choice of a foot or hand brake line.
The Trax Motocross is “the fastest snow bike racer’s kit available, period,” according to Moto-Trax.com. It includes the same front ski assembly, Gold REGINA X-Ring Chain and your choice of foot or hand brake line. This kit, however, offers either a 120″ or 129″ track as well as the industry leading FOX RC2 MX full moto-tuned shock with reservoir and three way adjustment.
The TraxEnduro “is the best all-around bike,” Stevens said. “It is a full feature, go anywhere, and ride what’s in front of you kind of kit.” What separates this kit from the others is the custom-tuned free riding version of the Moto Trax Premium FOX IFP shock system.
In-house innovation has been a major factor of Gentry’s early success.
“Our suspension puts us a step above the competition. We use what’s called a rising rate suspension, which uses a linkage like a dirt bike,” Stevens explained.”So when you’re doing big jumps or coming down a really whooped-out snowmobile trail, your suspension becomes firmer as it goes through its travel. That’s completely unlike anything on the market right now; everyone else uses modified snowmobile suspension, which uses falling rate suspension. Those collapse under their own weight. There are reasons this technology is used with snowmobiles, but the design of snow bikes makes it obsolete, we feel.”
“We’ve also designed a fully-pivoting skid,” he continued.”That means you’re free to move and lean as you go through corners. Now, rather than feeling like you have a four-by-eight piece of plywood behind you when you’re riding, you now have the ability to maneuver as you would on your dirt bike.”
Stevens feels that self-reliance is a character trait of many riders and something they look for in a brand.
“That ?Made in America’ label is important to us as a company and it’s important to our customers. It signals to people that as a company we have a higher standard of quality control because we can easily source every component. Most of our components come directly from manufacturers in the US, some from Canada. It’s also a smart, strategic business decision.”
Another smart and strategic business decision was revving up when they did. Moto Trax is not only zooming through virtually fresh powder with plenty of lane space between themselves and their three market competitors, they’re about to benefit from the ultimate exposure: TV.
“For the last six years or so, there’s been one primary snow bike racing series on the West Coast. It’s called Flash Point. It has since grown into probably the largest series in North America. Randy’s been a participant, actually. It’s a five round national series and this year the first and final rounds were here in Idaho. The other rounds were held in Minnesota, Utah, and Montana. With more and more riders entering every year, it’s creating the need for more and more classes and races. There are plenty of YouTube videos of the past six years of racing and that’s really put the spotlight on us as an up-and-coming legitimate sport.”
The spotlight is going to get a lot brighter on snow bikes in the New Year. According to Snowmobile.com, “ESPN has added snow bike racing to the upcoming X Games Aspen 2017, which takes place January 26-29.”
In their second year, Moto Trax saw between one and two hundred orders a month during the winter.
“When everything is said and done, we’ll be looking at approaching 1000 units this season,” Stevens projected. “Next season, considering trends in the industry, I could see it easily reaching multiples of thousands.”
Moto Trax maintains a large dealership network across Canada and the US. “We’re in the 40s range now and we’re looking to break into the territory of 100 dealerships by next season.”