Cochrane's Cody Matechuk had a picture-perfect ride at the Aspen X Games in Aspen, Colorado last Saturday (January 27).

Only in his third year of riding snow bikes, Matechuk is on fire this year; stating the races turned out to be everything he imagined, Matechuk was stoked to take the gold. Last year he captured bronze, but this year he thinks his positive mindset was the difference. "I think we came into the weekend mentally ready, the Yamaha Yeti was rippin' we had the suspension dialled in and we were ready to go. I didn't drive down there for second place and I told everyone that the whole time. I think a lot of it had to do with mindset and having the right people in our corner. It was everything we pictured and visualized. Every day leading up to the two weeks before it was just closing my eyes and visualizing the whole shot and leading the whole race and we ended up making it happen."

If you haven't heard much about snow bikes you are not alone, the sport is just starting to take off. "It's all so new, it hasn't evolved that big yet."

Training to compete at the level Matechuk is competing at, is not easy. "There is no real place to practice and train, there are no set tracks or anything. It is very independent right now, it's not like motocross where they've got a groomed track that we can just go pull up to. We're hauling our equipment 15 to 20 km up the mountain pounding in a track up there, bringing tools and different suspension stuff to try, but it's hard. We do the best we can but we did a lot better this year than last, and I think that effort showed off."

From jumping on a peddle bike at 3 years old Matechuk's love of dirt biking, motocross and street bikes led him to try the new upcoming sport. Racing street bikes amateur on the national circuit, and pro by the age 16, Matechuk took a break after high school. "I graduated high school in 2012 and then took some time off away from the race scene. I went drilling rigs for 3 1/2 years and got back to motocross after that and pro motocross. As that was all happening snow bikes were starting to become present and you were seeing more and more of them. Brock Hoyer talked me into it and the rest is history."

Aspen X Games is really the Holy Grail and Superbowl for the snow bike racers, but other races are on the horizon. Matechuk along with Brock Hoyer will head to Sicamous to compete in the Canadian Nationals (February 10 and 11) as well as AMA National Races. In the meantime, the duo is headed to Japan to do a little film work for the 'The Trax Film' which gives a great in view into the snow bike world including the history, the platforms and its pioneers.