Stay away from groomed cross-country ski trails, however. If you try to pedal in more than four to five inches of powder with your standard wheels, you'll sink in as if you were standing in quicksand. Hard pack is best; packed powder is also great. Encounter some packed hard pack with a few inches of powder and you'll think you're riding on top of the clouds. The secret to riding in the snow is flotation and slow, steady movements at a slightly lower cadence and higher gear than you normally would, and not jumping too hard out of the saddle when accelerating. Steer with smooth and wide turns, and if the bike wants to slip in one direction, let it.

Simon Rakower of All Weather Sports in Fairbanks, Alaska, is one of the foremost experts on the sport. He runs a business that caters to winter cycling and offers lots of information on training, equipment and events for those wanting to learn more about winter cycling. Rakower calls snow riding "more interesting and fun than riding on the dirt." And (talk about power riding) wait until you go on your first ride in four to six inches of powder. "Riding in the snow is hard and technical," he observes. "Ten miles in the snow is like 20 miles on a dirt trail."

"You do not need a fancy bike with duel suspension and hydraulic brakes, just a bike with the widest rims you can find," Rakower says. Try using Snow Cat double wide rims with a 2.2 tires on front and rear, and deflate your tires to 10 to 15 pounds of pressure. While most good wide tires with a mud-pattern will work in the snow, if you live in the New England area where there's more ice on the trails, you might want to consider obtaining a set of Nokian metal stud tires, which will help greatly on ice but not on the snow.

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