Written by Andy Oleson & Gomez Andy is up first with his review of the Bike Bag Dude – Chaff Bag – I usually never really have the Need, or make an Excuse, or even require a Reason to go for a bike ride. But today I had all three simutaniously! The “Need” was, I’ve [...]
Patrice Drouin spent 20 years as a designer in the auto industry in France before focusing his vision on making quality custom bicycles. He started Vagabonde Cycles in 2008 and since then has crafted more than 200 bikes. We feel fortunate today, because we get to share Vagabonde Cycles very first Fat-Bike. Patrice designed his [...]
With just a few days until the North American Hand-built Bike Show, Bob Keller, from Bob Keller Frameworks answered a few questions about his fillet brazed, steel fat-bikes. He will be attending the show with a super looking fat-bike design that highlights his construction techniques with a cool paint scheme that shows a fine red [...]
That’s the photo that led me to come in contact with our new amigo from the Netherlands, Tommy. I learned that Tommy is a guide at Lola Bikes and Coffee and that the shop runs Fat-Bike Tours in The Hague, the capitol city, of the Netherlands, nestled on the sandy shores of the North Sea. Every [...]
16″ (small) - 18″ (medium) - 20″ (large) -14″ and 22″ are also available. I’ve been trading emails with my Aussie amigos for the last 5 or 6 months about their new Fat-Bike company called MURU Cycles. “Muru” means, “the path”. Muru cycles plans to embrace the feeling of freedom and adventure, that ‘the path’ invokes, with [...]
Vibe Cycles out in Boise Idaho first popped up on our fat-bike radar with a bamboo fatty that was spied at the North American Hand Built Bicycle Show last March. Dave and Christi, from Vibe, have been keeping in touch, with us, and contacted me a few weeks ago, about their new custom hydro-formed aluminum fat-bike, called….the [...]
My first visit to Central District Cyclery was last winter on rainy February afternoon. I was on a whirlwind tour that took me to 616, CDC and Quiring Cycles. CDC is right in the center of downtown Grand Rapids – right next to GR Police Headquarters. The shop is in a sleek 3100 square foot [...]
As you read this, mi amigo James and I are starting a fat-packing trip from Whitefish Point to Grand Marais in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. James will be testing some Oveja Negra bags on our 3 day, seventy mile journey. James took a few preview shots on his test run of the Oveja Negra set-up – [...]
We always keep our eyes peeled for new and emerging talent in the industry. In the case of Kristofer Henry and 44 Bikes, it was Kristofer’s graphic design work that led us to this incredible story of how his custom bicycle fabrication shop was born. Graphic and industrial design talent, combined in balance, is a rare [...]
Straight out’s Fairbanks – (in the) with an AK – Becker Sewing & Design is another one man bag operation (like Barking Bear and Porcelain Rocket) that has sprung up in the face of the fat-bike revolution that has spread across the world from the land of moose and permafrost. We have NOT gotten our [...]
While Gomez and I were in Northern Michigan’s Mitten for the St Fattys Day event we had the opportunity to chat with Jason Snell from Barking Bear Bagworks located not far from the event location in Conway, MI. He had several bags built specifically for fat-bikes including the Pugsley and the Moonlander. I followed up [...]
I met up with Scott Quiring at his Free Soil, shop late on a Friday afternoon, on a recent whirlwind tour of the Michigan’s mitten. Scott and I had been trading emails over the winter, where he sent me a few snaps of his personal stainless steel, singlespeed belt drive fat-bike. Scott’s shop is on [...]
To give you an idea of how compact the world of fat bikes is, I met the owner of A-Train Cycles, Alex Cook, a few years ago, when I became his very first customer by purchasing a custom porteur front rack for my pugsley. Back then, Alex was working for a bike shop and welded [...]
Great minds from two iconic Michigami MTB Brands joined forces to form 616 Bicycle Fabrication last July. John Muezenmeyer , founder of Nuke Proof, and Aaron Joppe of Slingshot bicycles wanted to create a hand-built-in-the-mitten bicycle company that leverages the manufacturing might of western Michigan. 616 makes fat-bike frames, forks, hubs, and soon they’ll have their [...]
Freewheel Bike has 3 locations in MPLS and last month I sat down at the West Bank store with Freewheel Bike, General Manager, Jake Helmbrecht, to talk fat-bikes and share a guess at what might be new and exciting at Frostbike. Jake talked to us about Freewheel’s Winter Bike Expo that was held, last December, at [...]
Out of the Sierra Madre Mountains - Old Man Mountain (OMM) has a rich history in Mountain Bike touring racks that reflect their company philosophy – “don’t discriminate, innovate”. That’s why OMM built the first mountain touring racks designed to work with suspension mountain bikes and why they’ve brought that mind-set to their racks made for Fat-Bikes. [...]
Just two years young, Angry Catfish Bicycles and Coffee in South Minneapolis has made quite a splash on the Twin Cities Fat-Bike scene. Several of our MPLS amigos told me that Ben (General Manager) and Josh (Owner) are king-pins of the fat-bike scene thereabouts….and MPLS is nigh a small pond of fat-bikes. Josh and Ben [...]
I’ve been buying cycling clothes custom made by Lou Binik for a couple of years now and I like his gear so much that I approached him for an interview to get a bit of insight into the man behind every piece of Foxwear clothing; all hand-made in Idaho, right here in the US of [...]
Watson Cycles makes the Great Divide Fat Tire fat-bike and we recently had the opportunity to ask Andrew Watson about his inspiration and experiences with fat-bikes. Read on, gentle readers! When did you first discover fat-bikes and what was your initial impression? More than 10 years ago I was digging around in my friend’s basement [...]
Sandman Bikes is a Belgian fat-bike company that makes all-terrain bikes people have been doing incredible things on since 2007. Not just for sand and snow, these Sandman bikes! The current Sandman design is a symmetrical frame using a 165mm rear hub and a 100mm BB and they’re available with front suspension forks that can [...]
Our old friend Soupboy cooked this up for us… Milltown Cycles Expose: by Hugh Jwang, Phd., Womens’ Studies, University of Bangkok, Samut Prakan Campus Truth be told, I am a prolific bike whore. Not, as in never, necessarily in the sense that I’m fit, ride a ton, or sport sweetly ironic facial hair ever just so, [...]
I may just have died and gone to Fat-Bike Heaven. If you live in the North Central part of the U.S. you can visit Fat-Bike Heaven too…..DeKalb, Illinois…Downtown at North Central Cyclery. I made the trip down, to see for myself, what has been described to me as the premier Fat-bike shop in the upper-midwest/great [...]
I made my first visit to Iowa City last week to have my good friend Adam swap out the rims on my g-fiddy pugs for some of Surly’s fancy new powder-coated Rolling Darryl, drilled 82mm units. My rear wheel on the pugs had developed quite a wiggle and when I washed up the bike in [...]
I corresponded with Josh at Far North Fatbikes in Fairbanks, Alaska about their Fat-bike rental business and asked him to fill us in with some info about their business. Here is some of what we discussed. Look for more from Josh and J.R. in the near future! Far North Fatbikes, the only fatbike rental business [...]
