I designed several in 95 and 96 and continued to dabble with it for years. Around 2000 I registered SnowMoto.com and started designing and fabricating prototype parts. I envisioned ripping down slopes like a moto-crosser/mountain biker/snowboarder. I envisioned sports and events taking off and growing around these devices. I figured we could get snowbike races in the X-Games and create park freestyle contests etc. I still think this can, should and will happen. Over the past several years snowbikes do seem to be slowly gaining momentum in North America.
Soon with all the other things I had going on, like trying to get into video games, finishing my snowboard binding patent, doing freelance modeling and design work and planning to get married, I decided making snowbikes was not the best use of my time. The potential for fun was high but return of investment seemed low. I held SnowMoto.com for 2 or 4 years then let the domain go. It was quickly snatched up by another company. I watched them create snowbikes and market them on Snowmoto.com for several years, then one day the site was gone. Some time later the company Outer Edge grabbed the domain and is still marketing toy snowbikes and sleds under the snowmoto name.
I envisioned really fast hard carving bikes. As you can see in the images above from 1996, I designed skis with dual edges for better control, sidecuts and a rear axle that would pivot with a biasing mechanism to angle the board edges for tighter turns. I also kept an offset foot platform on most of my designs. When I'm laying a snowbike over I like to have offset pedals just like a bicycle crank. Most of my designs were just theories and never fully put to the test. Snowbikes were fun to think about though. I'd still like to have a well designed snowbike capable of large cliff drops and high speed moto-cross style racing.
I still have a SnowMoto Facebook page because my friends and I still often talk about building them, we just don't currently have the time: Facebook/SnowMoto
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