Ice road maintenance

[245dlc]

Well this winter we're having a real winter unlike last year where we had little to no snow and the temparature hardly went colder than -15 degrees celsius. Well this winter we've had temperatures as low as -35 and with the wind it felt like -45 degrees celsius. And we've gotten a lot more snow this year and with the lack of work when it isn't -35 I go quad on our little tiny river with my buddy who has an '85 250cc trike. But lately the snow has been piling up so to speak and the ice in places has gotten to rough to use my snowplow as water sometimes overflows on to the ice through small cracks (ice is about 2-3 feet thick in places) creating slush that freezes and is pretty rough to plow. So what I did at the start of the season once the ice was thick enough to support the weight of a quad (I wait till there is 12 inches of ice) I went out with my blade and cleared off whatever snow I could so the cold could penetrate deeper beneath the ice. And with the rough areas one of the guys I ride with drags an old tractor tire up and down which helps knock down sticks and stuff, plus it helps drag the snow off and in other places packs the snow down. I tried using the tire today my engine is only a single cylinder engine at 500cc where a lot of people like my friend are running up to 800cc and driving the UTV type which are a little heavier and better for traction, plus they have tire studs which supposedly help. I could pull the tire but I was doing a lot of spinning and you can't control it in curves and there are a lot of them on this little river. So I'm hoping to use a steel beam about 6 feet long and drag it at an angle so the excess snow can be dragged to the side.

[Wazza]

A frozen wonderland Bert .......
Is that a long range fuel tank on the back of the motorbike ??? ,or just somewhere to keep your frozen solid sandwich and Coke ...

[245dlc]

Just a cargo box I keep a small jerry can on mine for the longer trips as well a couple clevis's and a tow strap. got lots of room in mine so I can bring a lunch or some beer. lol

[Wee Jim]

Looks good! Don't get many if any trikes here as they were banned for being dangerous!

[245dlc]

Yeah they are dangerous, but here they were simply banned for manufacture you can still insure them and ride them here.

[Stock]

Nice pics Bert, would a piece of RSJ be better??

[245dlc]

Sorry don't know what RSJ stands for Stock.

[Stock]

RSJ = Rolled Steel Joist..............or I Beam as some westerners call it............

[245dlc]

I think that's pretty much what I got, they were two end pieces that my friend welded together he then welded some tubular pieces of steel cut about two inches thick so I attach a clevis to. I bought some hardware and cable clamps and used some old clothesline hoping it'll be strong enough. I also used a couple of used V-belts as kind of a suspension against shock forces. I ended up spending all of this afternoon putting it altogether so I only got to try it in my driveway a little bit, I hope to give a decent demonstration tomorrow on the trail.

[245dlc]

This pic didn't want to upload nicely. My friend that does the welding and I have been talking about building a grader type implement that we could pull behind the quad or a UTV that would have a offset hitch so snow could plowed off without having to drive through the snowbank with the machine but that'll require some more steel money and traction.