Don't be surprised if you see a dirt bike tearing up the powder in the Idaho mountains this winter.
A small Nampa company founded by a laid-off Hewlett-Packard engineer has merged the agility of a dirt bike with the snow-tracking capability of a snowmobile to create a snow bike.
For a little more than $4,000, 2Moto is offering a kit called the Radix that replaces a bike's two wheels with a rubberized track on the back and a ski on the front.
"It's like snowmobiling, dirt biking and skiing all in one," said Gerald Werner of Boise.
Werner, 39, bought the conversion kit for his bike when the first few kits went on sale late last winter.
"It's a blast in the snow," he said. "It's hard to describe. The freedom is just amazing."
Werner has been riding dirt bikes since he was 5 and been a snowmobiler for the last decade. He hasn't used his snowmobile since buying the kit and doubts he will use it this winter.
Snowmobiles are limited in where they can go, but the snow bike can handle steep mountainsides, he said. "You can go places where a sled can't follow you," he said.
The snow bike, which can be changed back into a dirt bike for the summer, was more than a decade in the making.
CEO and chief inventor Vernal Forbes, an avid dirt biker, came up with the idea in 1993 when a friend invited him to go snowmobiling. It didn't take him long to decide that snowmobiling didn't live up the excitement and freedom of dirt biking.
"I found it rather cumbersome," Forbes, 64, said. "I kept thinking about the capabilities of a motorcycle and wondering: Why isn't there a snowmobile like a motorcycle?"
At the time he was an engineer at Hewlett-Packard working as a research and development project manager in the disc memory division. He started developing concepts for a snow bike in his time off. Three years later, HP closed the division.
"I either needed to find another job in HP or take advantage of the the voluntary severance package," he said.
He took the package.Forbes thought he could start selling bike kits within three years. He spent nearly two years developing the key concepts, patenting the technology and working on a prototype.
In December 1998, he took his first prototype bike out near Idaho City. There were still some bugs to work out, but he had proved the concept could work. "I could see the potential because it did ride and handle much like a motorcycle," he said.
But progress came much more slowly than he expected. He plowed ahead, perfecting his design and trying to keep the company afloat financially. He spent his severance pay, then drew down his stock portfolio and his savings. Ultimately he tapped the equity of his home.
"It required some creative financing and some austere living," he said.
"You literally get to a point where you have so much into it and become so dependent on making it successful that quitting is a pretty remote option," he said. "It drives you to do everything you can to make the business work and be successful."
Eventually, some former colleagues from HP also took voluntary buyouts and invested in the company, and with the help of other investors, Forbes kept his plans afloat.
He now has six U.S. patents on the technology. He has dealers lined up in the Northwest and Canada. In December 2Moto will start full production at its Nampa manufacturing site in the Boise State University Technology and Entrepreneurial Center, an incubator for start-up companies at 5465 E. Terra Linda Way. A private stock offering is under way.
The company isn't stopping with the $4,249 kit. It's offering a fully outfitted bike called the Rogue 650 for $12,499 that is built for four seasons with wheels and snow bike kit included. The kit will work on most current off-road motorcycles. The company suggests the bikes have at least 40 horsepower.
The company sold a few Radix kits late at the end of last winter's season but plans a full push this season with a target to manufacture 345 kits.
Forbes hopes his idea will finally pay off, taking the winter power sports market by storm.
"I relied heavily on my imagination of the final product, and what it would be like, and how fun it would be to ride, and all the excitement the customer would feel riding the product," he said. "Those were the things in my dreams prior to leaving HP and was the fire that inspired the commitment and dogged determination to keep going, keep improving and finally get it here."
Ken Dey: 672-6757
