Cycles of all sorts

The Iditasport, a 160 mile (from '87 to '96) winter bike race, provided the original inspiration for Snow Cat rims. The last five runnings of this event have been dominated by riders on our rims. The 1995 Iditasport saw first through fifteenth places taken on Snow Cats.

When the Iditasport began (then called the Iditabike) participants went on a mad scramble to find the widest rims and tires that would fit on a bike. In response to this seach for an ever wider platform, Simon Rakower, who was (and still is) the tech support person for the race, started hand making rims for the participants.

By welding two rims together, then carefully cutting out the middle ridge, Simon was able to get a rim that would fit in every frame, but still offer the greatest possible flotation for the riders.

After the making the first fifty pairs, demand reached the point where it was practical to have our own extrusion. Thus was born the Snow Cat. Besides, the shop employees were really sick and tired of cutting little sections of rim out of the middle.

Snow Cats increase the width and volume of tires installed on them. With the right tires and at appropriate pressures, they'll let you ride on trails that are softer, more slippery, or more churned up than you can ride on conventional rims.

The rims are 44mm wide with a single wall cross section. Spoke lengths can be calculated from Sutherlands (they list them under All Weather Sports with a correction factor of -23). If you use spoke length software the ERD is 554. We drill the spoke holes slightly off-center and angled to match the line from hub to rim.

We'll drill them for you in any spoke count or pattern, eg. holes 10 mm off center for dishless rear wheels.

They fit almost all modern mountain bikes with no frame modifications. Simply swap rims and re-adjust your brakes. They work with most cantilevers, with Maguras (stock out of the box) and of course, with any hub brake. V-brakes work, but the arms stick way out unless the brake pad washers are thinned. We can do this for you if you're squeamish about modifying your V-brakes.

To get traction on soft surfaces, we run pressures as low as 5 PSI. Remember to glue your bead to the rim! More typically, we'll run them at 12-20 PSI.

Read the Dirt Rag review of our rim.