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First Look – Otso Voytek – Plus/Fat – By Seth Bell
Otso Cycles hails from Burnsville, MN., which is a long ways from where the brand’s identity is rooted. In Finnish mythology, Otso is the Spirit of the Bear; the noble ...
Drop Bars Not Bombs By JP & Seth Bell
Editor’s Note: We solicited ideas from the ranks of the bike black ribbon test pilots and we’ve posted quite a few of their suggested topics here over the last couple of months. We actually had two of our testers step up to the plate to explain how to set your regular normal fat-bike up with […]
The Weekly Dose of Fat 8/10/2018
I was talking to Steve Meurette the last time I was up at Levis and since he’s been the trail steward there since I met him somewhere back in the 90’s our conversation naturally turned to trail building. He mentioned that the Levis crew recently started benching and de-berming singletrack with a small (2 tine) gas-powered […]
Fat Video Tuesday ♦ #BAMfatbike2018 ♦ By Tom Ice
This is the second Tuesday in a row that our Fat Tuesday Video carries the #BAMfatbike2018 banner. Last week, the Commissioner of the Bivvy a Month Challenge, Jeff Price posted from the UK and this week…Tom Ice gives us a look at BAM No. 7 from Colorado. I’m gonna go by the sign (with all of the stickers) […]
Tepui Ayer 2-Person Rooftop Tent – Long Term Review
The first time that I ever saw a rooftop tent was at Sea Otter a few years back. Tepui had one set up on a silver Toyota (like the one I drive) so it caught my attention. I thought “cool idea..and asked how much?”. They said somewhere in the low two-thousands (I don’t remember […]
2019 Salsa Beargrease Carbon XO1 Eagle First Ride Impressions
We got our hands on Salsa’s ‘top of the line’ Beargrease a couple of weeks ago. The idea was to assign a test pilot with race credentials and experience with riding the previous model of Salsa’s proven (fat bike category) race whip. So we sent the Beargrease to Leia Schneeberger. Leia: aka – the […]
Salsa’s 2019 Fat-Bikes Released
The new Salsa Fat-Bikes have arrived! Today we’re here to share what will likely be, a hot ticket come this holiday shopping season….the 2019 Salsa Fat-Bikes. BEARGREASE – completely redesigned for 2019 The Geometry of the 2019 Beargrease gets a subtle tweak with the goal of not turning off any of the folks that already know […]
Bivvy a Month Challenge #7
With the UK still in the midst of a heatwave it made planning this month’s bivvy trip a little easier than normal. Its great to know that you’ve got a good dry spell ahead of you as you don’t need to take much in the way of kit. So for this one as it was […]
Product Spotlight Why Cycles Big Iron
The Big Iron, is the newest addition to the fleet over at Why Cycles. Named after a Marty Robbins ballad, this titanium bike has our stoke levels off the charts. Last Monday, a pair of Big Irons’ showed up at our doorstep. A size medium, for Becky to test, and a size XL for […]
Moons Over My Chamois – July
We premiered the Moons Over My Chamois series last month and we’re back with episode deux. We asked our crew of twenty-some bike black ribbon test pilots two questions. This way, when you read a review written by one of these rugged individualists, you’ll know a little bit more about what makes them tick. So […]
PDW Fatty Object Review
A few months back I started a review of the Portland design works Fatty Object thing and did a bench test to see if the 38 g CO2 cartridges would fill a 4-inch fat bike tire. You can see that report here. Over the last few months, I’ve done some testing out in the field with […]
Wallpaper Wednesday ♦ 7/25/18
Betsy Williford shared this week’s Wallpaper with us from Colorado and here’s a little bit about this week’s photo. Freshly into bikepacking I loaded up my fatty to test out my setup on what planned to be a daytrip only. I set out from Frisco, Colorado and rode the Ten Mile Creek bike pathway […]
Fourmile Travel Management Area – Colorado – By Scott & Nancy Anderson
Fourmile Travel Management Area: 100,000 acres of “spaghetti-western” scenery plus over 100 miles of dirt roads and trail equals fat biking paradise! Words: Nancy Anderson Photos: Scott Anderson Fourmile is located east of the Arkansas River and stretches north of Buena Vista, south of Johnson Village and up to the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness, smack […]
Black Ribbon Radio Hour – SSUSA – Dejay Birtch
Two-time SSUSA Champion, Spinner Ryerson interviews two-time SSUSA champion and recreation director of the SSUSA in Port Jervis New York this year, Mr, Dejay Birtch. It doesn’t get more seedy underbelly of cycling counter-culture than SSUSA. The event is steeped in tradition and the black arts, so to capture all of that grittiness we went down […]
The Dose of Fat Podcast – Show #136 – Gary Meyer & Roy Kranz
Fat-Bike Radio presents the Dose of Fat Podcast coming to you from behind the cheese curtain in a little place some people like to call “the big whiskey”. In show #136 we interview Gary Meyer, the winter trail guru at the Central Oregon Trail Alliance. We’talk about winter trails in the Deschutes National Forest near Bend […]
Event Spotlight – 53N Adventure Festival – Ireland
Our amigos at Fat Bike Adventures in Ireland shared an event that encompasses more than cycling. 53 Degree North presents Adventurefest! Here’s a little info from 53N. At 53 Degrees North, we know that everybody has an inner-adventurer. An inner explorer. A hunger for the outdoors. And a need to share their experiences with […]
Wallpaper Wednesday ♦ Tom Ice ♦ #BAMfatbike2018
Last December we announced the Bivvy a Month Challenge and our amigo, Tom Ice, has stepped up to the plate and is over half way to earning the Bivvy a Month Challenge merit badge. Our challenge will take you on a journey to discover just how much fun, you can tolerate. Are you up to the […]
Fat (video) Tuesday ♦ Glen Feshie by Illya Rudkin
Like many of my bikepacking or MTB videos before you may have gathered that we like to ride or explore the Cairngorms highland range in Scotland. This film is no different. It is a beautiful area and Glen Feshie is one of a few areas where the estate owners are actively promoting and restoring the […]
First Look – RSD Middle Child – By Dustin Carlson
What comes to mind when someone is described as a middle child? For me, I think this person is going to be wild, impulsive, and up for anything, as long as it doesn’t involve going to work! So, with the “Middle Child” moniker on the new RSD model, I’m really hoping that it lives […]
Fat Camp Podcast #33 – July 2018
Back from sabbatical, Ken and Andy present Fat Camp #33 here mid-summer, with a plethora of fat and plus bike talk to tickle your fancies. Inbetween a bunch of blah, blah, blah, they talk not only technical aspects of the bikes we love to ride, but also what they been up to and have […]
Idaho Hot Springs by Becky and Bryon Vordermann
The Idaho Hot Springs Mountain Bike Route, by Adventure Cycling, is a 517 mile main route, with several single track options. Months ago, we decided we wanted to tackle the main route in whole this summer. We picked two weeks in June after school ended and decided we would start in the Sun Valley area, […]
Wallpaper Wednesday – Wawayanda Park
Peter Warwick sent us this pastoral landscape with ‘black fat-bike’ and stepping stones along with a babbling brook. Here’s what Peter shared with us about his photograph. Are we still doing Wallpaper Wednesday? If so here’s a photo of my 2014 Farley in Wawayanda Park , in Northern New Jersey. This is the stone […]
Mid-Term Review of the Lake MXZ400 Boots
For those not familiar with the Lake MXZ400 it is Lake’s “winter extreme” cycling boot. It takes almost every aspect of Lake’s classic MXZ300 series boots and adds features that increase the warmth of the boot. In my “out of the box” write up I detail a lot of these features if you are interested […]
Comparison of Four 29×2.6″ Tires
If you follow bike media you will know that at one point not that long ago 2.8-3″ plus tires were the greatest thing ever. Now the talk is that they are too squishy and vague but 2.6″ tires are the goldilocks size, splitting the difference between traditional MTB tires and “full” plus tires. Personally, 2.6″ […]
Bivvy a Month Challenge #6
A Quick Getaway June’s bivvy a month is the halfway mark in this year of adventures. The month of the summer solstice is the main night for spending a night under the stars but as I was too busy for that one I had to squeeze a bivvy in at the end of the month. […]
Wallpaper Wednesday – July 4th, 2018 – Independence Day!
First things first…Happy Birthday to Sven Hammer! and Happy 4th of July! aka Independence Day in the United States of America. This is a shot taken up in Port Washington, Wisconsin from a ride I did up there in the Spring of 2017. If I remember correctly, we gathered some ramps and fiddleheads that I cooked up […]
Fat (video) Tuesday ♦ OMFB – Flat Creek
Is it to soon to dip back into the OMFB catalog? Well, it’s the day before ‘Merica’s Birffday’ and there’s nothing more ‘Merican than fat-bike funskies under the directorial supervision of Old Man Fat Bike. I’m beginning to be an OMFB fan. Maybe we should start the OMFB fan club. They have stickers for sale here. Would […]
Coast to Coast Bikepacking Michigan’s Mitten – By Andy Amstutz
Not many people drive across Michigan. It’s not on the way to anywhere. It’s the anti-Iowa in the way that I’ve driven through Iowa a dozen times to get to a destination but never had the pleasure of staying overnight. Michigan, like Florida and Maine, is a destination location, unless one is driving to Cuba, New […]
Moons Over My Chamois – June 2018
We asked our crew of contributors and product testers aka: the Bike Black Ribbon Test Pilots a couple of questions about their fantasy bicycle lifestyles and we’re going to share their answers in a new series that premiers, well…today! We asked three questions and asked everyone to send a photo, but nobody sent a photo, […]
Wallpaper Wednesday – Midnight in Wisconsin
Our old friend from Eau Claire, Nathan Long took this shot on a back country road on a late night fat bike ride at 1 am. Summer does crazy things to a man’s blood. Nothing like a fat-bike ride in the country to silence the sound of the drums… Got your own Wallpaper Worthy […]
Fat (video) Tuesday ♦ Mr. Pat Smage
It’s not often that you can say honestly that someone that you know, deserves their own action figure, but Pat Smage is an expert at turning what looks to be impossible into buttery smooth transitions, where man & bike act as one in perhaps, what one might call an alternate category of dirty dancing…and for […]
Ride Report: Peekaboo Gulch – Buena Vista, CO – by Nancy & Scott Anderson
Peekaboo Gulch – Buena Vista, CO Words: Nancy Anderson Photos: Scott Anderson except where noted Wednesday was the second time we fat biked South Fork Lake Creek (SFLC) Road into Peekaboo Gulch. But we have played on SFLC road many times before; from there we hike to the summit of 14,336′ La Plata […]
The Weekly Dose of Fat – Solstice +1 – 2018
The first full day of Summer and there are literally scads of things happening in the Plus and Fat bike lanes these days. But…one thing that’s not happening is a dose of fat podcast. At least not this month. The next episode of the dose will happen in July. Kristie Fore took the photo above at Bishop’s […]
Northshore Rack NSR-4 Review
I first came across the unique verticle Northshore hitch-style rack out in Long Beach, Washington back in the autumn of 2015. I rented a Salsa Mukluk from Northwest Bicycle Improvement out of Roslyn Washington and they had one of these kick-ass racks on the back of the shop van. (photo below) Since then we’ve tested and highlighted […]
Wallpaper Wednesday – Aussie Series No. 6
Our amigo from Australia, Eckart Altenkamp is back for his sixth Wallpaper Wednesday in our monthly Aussie Wallpaper Series. This what Eckart shared about this month’s image. This picture was taken riding the “Sky Trek” in a 270 square km farm in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. We encountered many Emus and kangaroos, but […]
Fat (video) Tuesday ♦ Old Man ~ Fat Bike
Today’s feature on Fat Video Tuesday comes to us from a cat that calls hizself ‘Old Man Fat Bike’. This is from a warm snap from back in January, down in Missouri. More of that #fourseasonfatbikes campaign that we mention (constantly). I wonder if Old Man Fat Bike knows Old Bear? Missouri has some gorgeous freshwater […]
Event Spotlight – Wausau 24 – July 28-29, 2018
Here’s an event for our fat-bike readers! The Wausau 24 at Nine Mile County Forest! Check out all of the Fat-Bike Categories! 6 Hour Racing Categories Solo Male Fat Bike Solo Women Fat Bike Solo Female Fat Bike Junior Solo Male Fat Bike Junior 12 Hour Categories Solo Male Fat Bike Solo Women Fat […]
Fat Tire Tour of Milwaukeestein – June16th, 2018
If you’re anywhere near Milwaukee and you’re looking for a fun fat bike ride this Saturday, join me and a few thousand others at this year’s Fat Tire Tour of Milwaukee. The ride starts at the old Pabst Brewery and then hits a brewery and a distillery. They don’t divulge all of the stops until the […]
Fat Fish 40 Race Report
Late last winter, the Fat Fish 40 Race Director, Alan Hane, listed their event on our fat-bike.com event calendar. The first thing that caught my eye was the aquatic name and then the fact that the race venue was in Wisconsin. (I thought to myself) Where the heck is Webster, Wisconsin? I hit up google maps and […]
Wallpaper Wednesday – Le Grand Teton
Over the years, we’ve been incredibly fortunate to meet folks from all over the world that share our passion for plus and fat-bikes. More recently (about a year ago) I was introduced to Becky & Byron Vordemann and their Wee Lass April through Black Ribbon (Plus-Bike) Test Pilot, Bruce (best name ever) Smithhammer. Last winter […]
Fat Video Tuesday – Fatbike Touring Southwestern USA
Fat (video) Tuesday returns with the new live double album from ForestyForest recorded on his tour of the Southwestern US. This one sort of grabs you and pulls you in with poignant quotes and beautiful imagery. Check out the Route: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Rzm… Follow ForestyForest on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forestyforest/ Share your Plus or Fat Pixels Give us your tired, your […]
Fat Camp – Interview With Adam Miller of Why Cycles
Where the hell ya been? Some of you may have been wondering about the Fat Camp podcast and what the heck Captain Ken and his sidekick, Andy, are up to these days. Let’s just say it’s been an interesting spring…but the boys are back with some technical talk about fat and plus bikes. In […]
The First 60 Days with a Surly Midnight Special – By Ron Stawicki
60 Days of a Midnight Special (Disclaimer: This is my personal bike I purchased from my local bike shop. Since it’s a “fat road” bike I offered to write up my take on it for fat-bike.com. I changed some of the parts to suit my needs but it’s not far off from original. Here are […]
Wallpaper Wednesday – #BAMfatbike2018 By Tom Ice
Tom Ice sent us pics from his Bivvy a Month Challenge – #5 BAM for May in picturesque Crystal, Colorado. We debuted the new design for the #BAMfatbike2018 merit badge last week. I should get cracking on getting some of those made. Speaking of getting things made…we were temporarily out of Otis stickers, but we […]
Bivvy a Month Challenge #5
Fat Bike Jura I had a few days spare at the end of May for my 5/12 of #BAMfatbike2018. I must admit I wasn’t feeling like using them up as I wasn’t in the zone for a trip away. However as the weather forecast was looking hot here in the UK it would have been […]