UCI Snow Bike world championships are actually happening

Chatel, France is getting ready to host the first-ever UCI Snow Bike world championships. What are snow bike world championships, you say? Is this a fat biking thing?

Well, if you missed the UCI’s announcement back in June (there were a few other, more interesting things happening at the time), it’s going to look like a cross between skiing and downhill mountain biking. The two events announced for the February 10-11 inaugural edition will be Super-G and Dual Slalom. The UCI’s promised more information “in due course” but, of course, there’s still nothing concrete. Basically, though, they mirror the ski events.

Is this fatbiking?

Yes, fatbiking exists and is still a popular form of riding in many parts of Canada. No, this is not fat biking world championships. That would make too much sense.

So, what is snow bike world championships? UCI describes it as a combined downhill and slalom type event. The organisation’s stated it will be contested on something closer downhill mountain bikes, not fat bikes, since it appears to tie into the downhill World Cup series (more on that below).

Besides the events and that the winner, or winners, will be crowned world champions, there are still very few details.

Hasn’t this been done before?

Of course this isn’t the first time bikes have been raced on snow. MegaAvalanche, and similar mass-start downhill races have decades of history. In Canada, ski resorts have hosted downhill and slalom type events off and on for years. Remember FrostBIKE at SilverStar Mountain Resort?

But, with the UCI getting involved, the stakes are higher.

World champion of what?

Being the UCI, snow bike worlds couldn’t just be a new, weird, invented off-shoot no one pays attention to that is somehow rewarded with a world championship title (pump track world championships?). No, it has to somehow mess with actual racing, too.

How? It looks like snow bike world championships could, in its first edition, be worth UCI points for the upcoming season. As pointed out on Pinkbike, deep in the UCI rulebook is a change that shows the new world champions will get a hefty 100 UCI points along with their rainbow jersey. With the UCI making it harder and harder to get into World Cup downhill racing, that is not an insignificant footnote.

In fact, from a Canadian perspective, making a wild winter version of downhill (sort of) worth downhill points could be a sweet backdoor for some upcoming young Canuck racers. They just have to get themselves to Chatel, France, to take advantage of their snowy upbringing.

To be clear, downhill mountain biking on snow sounds like an amazingly fun way to spend a weekend. If it wasn’t being hosted by the joy kill officials of the UCI.

Apparently this already happens in France?

How is this already a world championships event? Other than FrostBIKE at SilverStar, winter downhill has had a very limited race presence in North America. Every year a few pros go out and hit the slopes for some video part, and plenty of us go ride the snow for fun. But organised racing? Not so much.

Overseas, the story might be different. Deep in the UCI press release, Michel Callot, President of the French national cycling organisation (FFC), noted that this is growing out of that country’s national circuit. So apparently people are racing snow bikes already.

“France is a leading mountain bike nation, which means the Fédération Française de Cyclisme takes an interest in all developments within the discipline. So it’s only logical that snow bike has been established in our country thanks to a national circuit,” Callot said. “The awarding of the first UCI Snow Bike World Championships to Châtel celebrates the dynamism of Châtel and the Haute-Savoie region in terms of cycling, and gives concrete expression to the initiatives developed by our Federation to promote this discipline.”

So, there you have it. The first fat bike world champions will be crowned in 2024. What a world. Maybe if this catches on, Whistler can finally get a winter downhill World Cup event?