I WAS LIKE A KID on Christmas morning; either that or I was starting with a cold or manflu.

It all started back in August with a lump of redundancy money and Salsa’s announcement of it’s first ever snow bike, the Mukluk. I read the marketing blurb, the forums that are into that sort of thing lit up with “why it’s so good” and “why it’s so bad”, but I put my deposit down nevertheless with a bike shop in the states.

I waited and waited, the rumours said October deliveries this came and went, as did November delivery rumours during which it became clear that Salsa had underestimated it’s demand and I was left wondering would I get mine from the first batch or not? Then came the email from the shop saying “Your bike will be with us next week” another came a week later saying “The delivery trucks here” followed by email silence for 48 very long hours…. Finally the email with shipping information with a 6 to 10 days delivery time came through along with the tracking numbers to watch on a daily/hourly basis.

13 days later (bloody customs), I turned up at my local parcel force depot with the delivery numbers and ID, saying “I’m not waiting for the letter from the customs saying I need to pay X amount, I want to pay for it right now”. Shock horror it actually worked and I walked away with my all-new bike.

That night I built it up and had a spin around the local estate. The next day I had a 45-minute spin around a local windswept beach near a customer of mine, what fun.

So, it’s back to the start again. I was like a kid at Christmas just two days after getting my new bike it started to snow heavily from straight after work on Friday evening. Before midnight it dumped down between 6” and 8” of the white stuff. It was seven days before Christmas Day and I watched the clock tick tock its way from 5am until first light.

In this time riding thoughts were racing “Will it be as good on the snow as it was on the sand” “Have I wasted some of my redundancy money?” “Hell no it’s a bike, I wasn’t expecting such a large lump sum and I got a new job shortly afterwards”

It’s 6.15am and still dark, I lie here with a note pad writing down all of the above in the glow of a low energy bulb in my reading lamp and waiting. It’s 6.24am I must get back to sleep, but first a quick nip to the loo (I’m not getting any younger) and another look through the curtains to see if it’s still there and yes it’s still as deep and crisp and even as it was at midnight.

6.29am a plan, last night I was told that the mother in law was running out of milk and bread, the wife said it wouldn’t be safe for her to walk to the shops on her own what with all this snow and ice. Time for a snow bike rescue mission and an off route ride was drawn up in my mind.

7.56am the first chinks of light can be seen through a gap in the curtains, breakfast eaten, dog walked, bike ride. Happy Days.

So how did it ride? Was it what I expected?

Who do you think I am a bike journalist? Lets just say it was great fun and I don’t regret buying it.

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More photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/2565551...24523830/show/

Beach video