You told your parents over and over again that you were too big for training wheels, too old for training wheels, too good for training wheels. And after what seemed like forever they finally agreed. Your Dad stole away to the garage with your trusted bike and removed those pesky training wheels.
Now, at long last, you’re out on the street saddled up and ready to ride while your Dad holds you upright from the back of the bike. Your Mom and older sister, who long ago learned to ride on just two wheels, are watching with eager anticipation. Despite all your earlier confidence about riding without the training wheels, you’re nervous now. Your palms are sweating and the butterflies in your stomach feel like they might just try to escape through your throat. You’ve come too far to back out now, so you put on your best false brave face and you start to pedal.
It’s slow at first as your Dad walks along with you and assures you it’s going to work out. You’re pedaling faster now and your Dad runs behind you as the wind begins to rush through your hair. Suddenly, you’re not sure if your Dad is still back there, but you’re too nervous to look over your shoulder to check. Seemingly out of nowhere, you now hear the cheers of your family fading into the distance and realize you’re out on your own at last. The feeling of freedom is overwhelming. You can’t stop thinking about where your newly found independence will take you. To your best friend’s house? To the corner store for candy bars? Who knows, maybe you’ll just ride off into the great unknown. Wherever those two wheels end up taking you you’re sure of one thing: this is the greatest feeling of freedom and fun you’ve ever had.
We’ve all experienced that moment. Looking back now you can picture your version of those events and it probably makes you smile. Those early days, out riding your bike, always seemed to offer up a world of endless possibilities. That trusted ride; be it a dirt bike you would go jump in the woods, an old Schwinn with a banana seat you would cruise around the neighborhood on, or just a rusty old bucket of bolts that was a hand-me-down, it always brought out a sense of joy like nothing before it ever had. Whatever happened to that feeling? Why don’t you ever get on a bike and just ride off without an agenda anymore? Why don’t you pedal aimlessly through the woods? Well, it could be many things. Your life got too busy. Bikes got too complicated. Riding seems too dangerous. Whatever it was, fat bikes can fix that problem. Fat bikes might just be the ticket to get you back out for a joy ride. A fat bike just might be your gateway back to the freedom you once experienced.
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Fat biking is one of the fastest growing segments in cycling and has quickly moved from the fringe to the mainstream. While fat bikes haven’t had quite as dramatic an effect on bike design as fat skis did to ski design the reports from users are often much the same. First time fat bikers, who also happen to be skiers, are often known to draw a parallel to the amount of fun they had on fat bikes to the first time they tried fat skis. While the exact origin of fat biking is still debated, it’s clear that it quickly became popular as a way to keep riding in the winter and offers terrific performance in snow. With fatter tires operating at much lower pressures, often around 5 psi, fat bikes can gain buoyancy in the deep snow and also provide much better traction on groomed surfaces than a traditional bike.
These days it’s not uncommon for Nordic ski trail operators to offer fat bike rentals among their fleets. Such is the case at Schweitzer Mountain Resort where the snow report even lists a color indication for fat bike status on the trails that day. Local fat bike enthusiast Doug Nicol describes the experience of fat biking on Nordic trails as being “extremely calming.” Where in the summer you would be likely to run into plenty of other bikers, that same trail in the winter is only lightly travelled, providing a peaceful escape from the hustle and bustle of daily life.
A bit further away, in the Methow Valley, the Sports Trails Association allows fat biking on some of their trails, and the Sun Mountain Lodge even grooms a portion of its trail system specifically for fat bikes. In fact, it’s in the Methow Valley in Winthrop, Wash. where the group Northwest Fatbike will host its 5th annual Winter Fatbike Meet Up on Jan. 13 and 14. Northwest Fat Bike member/manager Shawn Pederson points out that fat biking is a great way for people to enter into the “ski” environment without the steep learning curve of skiing and also a way for folks of any age to keep that feeling of exploration alive.
Fat bikes have proven to be so effective in the snow they have spurred a whole collection of snow-covered endurance events including, perhaps the most famous, the Iditarod Trail Invitational. Following the course of the world renowned Iditarod Sled Dog Trail Race, this epic adventure is available to riders wishing to compete at a length of 350 or 1000 miles. In order to compete in the 1000-mile version, however, riders must have successfully completed the 350-mile version the previous year.
While fat bikes have gained a lot of popularity due to their advantages on snow, they provide advantages on other surfaces as well such as sand, gravel and rocks. They perform so well on the sand, in fact, that a cyclist in Texas recently celebrated that state’s Open Beaches Act by riding and swimming all 439 miles of the Gulf of Mexico shoreline from Mexico to Louisiana. The oversized tires on his fat bike even provided enough buoyancy for him to use it as a flotation device to swim the portions of his journey that required traveling through water. It’s like a real world version of many a childhood dream. Cruising across a sandy beach with the wind in your hair and then jumping into the water to take a swim and getting to bring your bike along. On other surfaces such as gravel and rocks, the extra air in the oversize tires softens the impact and provides a more consistent contact with the surface allowing for a more relaxed ride. Where a traditional mountain bike front tire would kick sideways off a rock creating the potential for a dangerous wreck, the larger tire of the fat bike will roll right over it.
Whether it’s floating through the fresh snow, pedaling across a sandy beach or just riding through town, a fat bike will make you feel like a kid again.
Why not recapture that unbridled joy of your first-ever solo bike ride? Who wouldn’t want to ride for miles down a sandy beach with the sun on your face, wind in your hair and the waves crashing at your tires? No matter what your motivation is to give it a try, you’re virtually guaranteed to have a good time when you climb onto the saddle of a modern fat bike. One thing is for certain, with all the advantages they offer over traditional mountain bikes, fat bikes are here to stay. So, you might as well hop on one today and go enjoy the ride. N
By John Grollmus
Photography By Joel Riner
As Featured In: Winter/Spring 2018