Fatbike Fun

OK, Ok, I've been whining like a little girl about how heavy my Pugsley is, how I feel beat to crap when I come back from a ride and so on and so on.  Yes, I'd really like a new Salsa Bucksaw Carbon.  And I'll probably settle on a Bucksaw 2  or some other FSFB because I don't think I'll ever be able to bring myself to pay $6500 for a bike, not yet.  And spending an extra $2500 to save 300g seems ludicrous, although I think most of the price is for the bike porn red paint job.  And it's almost worth it.

Bike Porn Red

But anyway, if wishes were fishes then, I don't know, I'd wish for enough yellow-fin tuna to buy a Bucksaw.  The point of this story is I had two awesome fatbike rides this weekend.  Normally I bring the beast out on the worst weather days or unknown trail days full of excitement and hope and return 50% later than expected, soaked in sweat with achy knees.  I complain about how hard it was to grind up the hills on a 38lb bike, blah blah blah.  I realize that a lot of this is self imposed because the fatty comes out when others can't.

I think the white snow would go well against a red background.

This weekend was different.  My wife and I headed out with the dogs to some trails that I knew had been packed.  She on her studded tire MTB and me on the (slightly studly) fatbike.  The trails were a mix of hardpack, soft pack, crust and a little ice.  The regular mountain bike was a fine choice for the terrain.  There was no place that it couldn't go.  BUT, the fatbike was a great choice. The wider tires let me float over some crust where the MTB broke through.  The added traction and contact patch let me blast through rutted sections that I would have been a lot more cautious on with my other bikes.  But the most fun was on the 2 miles of packed singletrack section.  The pugs and I were zipping through the trees with more grace than I normally have.

Is that a boot?

We had some much fun that we decided to go out and ride it again in reverse the next day.  The trails and the day did not disappoint. The studs I added to the 45North Dillingers added the confidence I needed to push through some of the icier sections.  So much so that I went out and bought 100 more, 'cause you can't have too much confidence.  I bought the tires studdless to see how they ran without studs.  I quickly realized that if I wanted to ride it across the clear ice on the lake that I would need some studs.  Oh, I also realized that getting up and down the icy hills at the Moose Brook Fatbike Race would require some studlyness.  200 studs later brings us to last weekend's ride.  Saturday was fine but Sunday had a dusting of snow over the icy patches which provided just enough slippage to make me have stud-lust.

The dogs had a great time out in the trails too.  Between the 2 days they put in 12 miles and are appropriately worn out, it is wonderful and they are happy.  If I can edit together some decent footage I'll post some trail dog videos in a later post.