The Science Teacher and The Moose

Bo DeRemee is the lead fat bike trail groomer at Hidden Valley for the Ely Nordic Ski and Bike Club. This is the transcript of an interview by Hidden Valley ambassador Brett Ross. Read more about Bo’s dedication to the region and his many years as head groomer at Hidden Valley trails in Ely. 

[Brett] Hello, Bo.

[Bo] Greetings.

[Brett]  Thank you for being here.

 [Bo] My pleasure.

 [Brett] Could you tell us a little bit about your background and what brought you here to northern Minnesota?

[Bo] What brought me to northern Minnesota? Through college I had been doing the dog sledding thing up here in Ely. And then at right out of college, had a teaching job, taught a couple of years and weekends, come up and do a little guiding and such when I could, but then quit a perfectly good teaching job and went to full time dog sledding and ended up in Ely doing that. And then, springtime came in between seasons and I took a substitute teaching job. 30 some years later from that, I retired from that job.

Throughout the time, though, I’ve been very involved with Hidden Valley ski and now bike area. I’ve been part of the grooming teams over the years for skiing. And then the bike trails came, and then the winter bike trails came, and the head groomer for the ski trail said, “Bo, do you want to do the bike grooming?”

And I said, “yeah,” and that’s how I became the bike groomer. In a nutshell.

[Brett]  You retired from teaching at Ely High School. You taught physics primarily, right?

[Bo] Physics, biology. And, as you know, a small school, you kind of have to do a little bit of everything

[Brett] And you coached some Nordic skiing as well, right?

[Bo] Coached Nordic skiing. Paula Anderson and I started the (high school) ski program in Ely and it turned into something that is just… unfathomable to my brain what the program is in Ely now. I was also a big part of the Minnesota Youth Ski League years, too, a big part of that.

[Brett] You were the weekly M.C. on your skis with the microphone!

 [Bo] And I was a chief cat wrangler there. Very much Wrangler. Yes. 100 kids out there.That is some of the funnest times I’ve ever had out at Hidden Valley was those days. It’s a really good time.

[Brett] I mean, all of our kids collectively went through the program, and it’s part of the reason we have such a strong Nordic ski program here. Now we’re seeing a lot more kids out there all year round on mountain bikes and fat bikes. We’ve got a high school mountain biking team…

[Bo] Yeah, it’s just fun to see that venue change over the years. And, matter of fact, Roger Pekuri brought a picture book out from the early days, the very early days, the late 80s and early 90s.

And it’s just funny to see what it looked like then, you know, the trails were narrow… no bike trails. The chalet was in shambles…  but it’s come a long way. It has come a long way.

[Brett] I know you’re very serious about grooming the fat bike trails. Are you that serious about riding fat bikes and or mountain bikes?

[Bo] Biking in general has always been part of my life. I mean, as a kid, you know, we were riding bikes up and down, jumping and, you know, the Schwinn Stingray… you know, the 70s there was a lot of biking done. Then I bike packed for years… and then biking got popular again.

It’s fun to see all these people out on bikes. The full suspension thing was new to me, and I picked that up. I have a springtime trip planned down to Bentonville this spring and the fat biking is… the fat biking is probably some of the funnest, because I can remember being a kid, winter time, when we actually had winters, even in southern Minnesota, wanting to go biking.

But the Schwinn Stingray, with its little one inch tires…. No one even dreamed about a fat bike back then. But I would have been fat biking as a kid had I had they existed.

[Brett] It does seem to open up a whole new universe to you. I know I’ve been in places in the winter time thinking there’s no reasonable explanation for the fact that I’m riding on a bike in this swamp.

[Bo] Yeah, dog sled trail, right? Absolutely. The Kawishiwi Triangle trails are some of the finest, most unique biking I’ve ever done, right? I mean, it’s just seemingly endless when you’re out there. Yeah, it has 60 miles of trails, I think, out there. I still get lost. And I was guiding on those trails! Yeah, it’s a hoot.

 [Brett] Talk about the Trail Tamer, also known as “The Moose.”

[Bo] Yeah. So as you know, the singletrack trails are pretty narrow. So you need to have a piece of equipment that can handle the narrow trails and particularly the switchback turns. You know, a snowmobile can’t. There are a few snowmobiles that can do that, but they’re not really functional for pulling and dragging and such.

But there are numerous, venues that groom with snowmobiles. And with that said, there’s two kind of gosh, I don’t know how you describe the Trail Tamer and the Snow Dogs. They’re basically powered dog sleds. They’re, you know, a lawnmower engine with, clutch and belt and drives a snowmobile track. And the track pulls you along as you grab the handlebars and, stand on the essentially a sled a little groomer, and it articulates, and you drive this thing up and down the hills.

So the Snow Dogs and the Trail Tamers are the two. And actually there’s a group of people making their own now, too, you know, people who have the welding skills and such. There’s a lot of those, even electric ones, occasionally. But this Trail Tamer, we picked up, and it got the name “The Moose” because there was a learning curve.

And the way it came, stock, it went straight really well. Turning? Wow, I mean…  I called it “The Moose” because you grabbed the handlebars and it was like grabbing a moose by the horns and wrestling it. I was down to a tee shirt sometimes, it was so much work trying to keep it upright. Then with the help of one of the groomers in the Duluth area, I visited him and looked at his machine -a Snow Dog- and the modifications that they did to it, which we then did to the Trail Tamer. And since then, and this is an ongoing discussion between Trail Tamer people and Snow Dog people. Which one’s better? And, you know, I’m going to be on the Trail Tamer side of things with the modifications.

They call it a “floating articulated toe.” I don’t know, there’s all sorts of names, but how it tows the thing you stand on is has been changed and now it’s stable. Now we don’t wrestle “The Moose” anymore.  We dance with “The Moose”.

You also generally will pull, a tire or something behind it. We can lay corduroy down just like for the skate lanes in the, ski areas. But there’s a little bit of a discussion whether people like corduroy or no corduroy. And I’m in the no corduroy standpoint, you know, because corduroy was meant to make a ski glide. Yeah. And I don’t want my tire to glide.

[Brett] No, I’m not a fan of the gliding tire. I like traction.

 [Bo] So I wipe out the corduroy with a tire with little wings on it, and and it’s still a good grip.

It’s not, you know, people say, well, doesn’t it get slippery? No. Your tires grab it. Good. So there’s kind of three grooming things that I use out there when there’s essentially more than three inches. Even depends 2 to 4in of snow. We drag the triangle tires. So three tires that kind of make a tube down the way.

And then you come back and flatten it out with a single tire. And then there’s a new thing. And, some of the Duluth guys can’t wait to come up and see this. Grooming on the sides of the hills can be a challenge, because the camber of the trail, it wants to keep tipping downhill. So basically a plow between the the track and the sled that you stand on and it you can grab and plow it off to the downhill side, and you can switch it from one side to the other.

And it’s working well. I’ve hardly shoveled anything this year at all. Usually about every other time grooming. You’d have to get the shovel out and cut down the top side of the hill and flatten it out. Otherwise you fall off the hill trying to groom.

[Brett]  Which was the reason to add a winch to the Trail Tamer.

[Bo] I have not used the winch once this year I haven’t gone… I’ve gone off the trail a couple times, but that was more because of hubris. I’m just going full speed and then hit a bump, and next thing you know, I’m in the woods. You know, the funny thing about the Trail Tamer and the Snow Dogs is the faster you go, the easier they are to steer you.

[Brett] I remember you telling me that. And I thought, well, that also means that if I don’t make the curve, I‘ll probably end up pretty far in the woods.

[Bo] That’s right. So there’s a fine line between, going too fast and otherwise you’re muscling it. Just like I said, you’re dancing with it.

[Brett] So I see you wearing some pretty fancy headphones when you’re out there grooming. I’m curious… You and I talk about music all the time, and I’m curious what music you like to listen to. Is there a favorite artist or album or a station?

[Bo]  So first of all, they’re noise canceling earphones. Okay, so and then I feed in the tunes and it is a sometimes I find myself dancing with the right music there.

There are certain tunes that come on that just work perfect for it, you know, and certain sections of the trail and so forth. So there’s some practicality of wearing the earphones because, you know, it’s like running a big riding lawnmower. It’s a little noisy and things. But as far as my taste in music, my favorite music is live music.

But obviously that doesn’t work, sitting on the Trail Tamer, but yeah, I kind of do a lot of bluegrass these days. I have a little bluegrass roots from my junior high days playing guitar and banjo and it’s kind of gotten some really good stuff out there. Billy Strings. I remember telling you about Billy Strings before anyone even knew who Billy Strings was.

[Brett] You are the first person I heard utter Billy Strings name.

[Bo] Yeah.

[Brett] Thank you for that.

[Bo] And, so there’s a ton of other really solid, you know, I don’t know, what do you call that genre? Americana? I think they call it. You know, the turtles have always been a favorite of mine, you know, Trampled By Turtles. And just good old classic rock and roll. Yeah. There’s some days I’ll just be rocking on the thing. And, yeah, I love music, and it is part of what I do when I’m grooming out there

 [Brett] What’s more fun for you packing down the trails on “The Moose” or riding them afterwards?

[Bo] Yeah, I love it both. The riding can be a social thing, you know, and you can’t be very social on “The Moose”, you know, but, I love them both. I  love the, the workout of “The Moose”, of grooming the trails. It is physical. Takes about two hours. And and sometimes I’ll go bike after that.

Or sometimes I’ll go bike before. Gosh, do I spend more time grooming the trails or biking the trails? It’s. Let’s be honest, it’s probably pretty even. You know, I love doing both. You know, I ride other venues too. You know, I just, matter of fact, a lot of people don’t know. But it’s okay to ride down the power line to hit Outback.

And Outback doesn’t have the grueling hills right? Right away. Right. You know, so it’s just too much, you know, just like I’m not 20 anymore. And it takes me a little while to get warmed up. So climbing the hills right off the bat, that Hidden Valley can be a little challenging for the these old legs.

 [Brett] That’s a good pro tip that you can ride the powerline down to Outback and start with that, and then you’re not starting with those uphill switchbacks.

[Bo] Yep, yep. On magic carpet right away. But yeah I’m probably pretty even between riding out there and grooming out there. Yeah.

[Brett] All right, so obviously Hidden Valley is the place for groomed singletrack. What are your next favorite routes to bike around Ely.

 [Bo] Well the, the triangle that we were talking about. Kawishiwi triangle, that maze of dog sled trails and and then there’s a local guy who packs them down too and drags a tire, who’s an avid cyclist.

And then I keep a little five-k loop out at my place, groomed for skiing and biking. I have a little injury right now that skiing is aggravating, so I haven’t been skiing much. So I’ve been biking in the morning sometimes with the dog. The other one, again, it’s convenient for me because I live off the Echo Trail, to do the Bass Lake to Low Lake to Hobo, and then back to the Echo Trail.

It’s a nice little eight mile loop. You know, I have the luxury of retirement, and I have my health and things, so… it’s paddle-bike-ski for me. Yeah. And it’s “what’s the season?” And now the neat thing is, the biking is full time all year round!

[Brett] What advice do you have for somebody who is coming to ride Hidden Valley for the first time in the winter?

 [Bo] Yeah. Head out the power line to Outback. You know, skip the switchbacks and the climbs right off the bat.

Because I think that discourages people, especially if you’re new to that. And there’s not to say that there’s not some climbs to do on Outback. Yes. You know, but the first half of it is just rolling, gentle, good flow and, and just a great way to warm up.

[Brett] Kind of a quintessential cross-country trail.

• [Bo] It really is. You know, there’s some little zippity do’s up and down and things with a couple climbs and, you know, a little challenging here and there. And the beauty of that this time of year, there’s no rock gardens. So yeah that’s one of the first things I do. The second we get snow is I start shoveling and covering them up so I can get the Trail Tamer across it that much sooner.

Erratic behavior and outback are the hardest ones to groom early in the season. Because of all the rock gardens, of course. But they’re the easiest to groom once we have a good base and snow and I can just fly through them with the Trail Tamer. And the same with the biking.

So yeah, my recommendation is to hit the power line, get out to Outback and enjoy and then come back down, the rest of the trails, you know, on the return route, don’t do the power line, but because it’s mostly downhill with some nice big hills coming down back to the chalet. Yeah.

[Brett]  Anything else you’d like to add?

[Bo] Go bike. You know, I mean this is I guess one of the reasons I like doing this. It’s another venue for other people to go bike, you know, I mean I love it I, you know, I have some selfish motives, obviously, for doing this, it’s fun. But it’s equally fun to see people out there biking,

[Brett] Thanks so much, Bo.

 [Bo] My pleasure.

[Brett] See you on the trails!

[Bo] Can’t wait!

See Bo and “The Moose” in action!

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