First Look – Ventana’s El Gordo

From the moment that I laid eyes on Ventana’s new El Gordo fat bike, I knew that we had to find a way to test one of them. I first discovered Ventana way back in the 90’s when a friend of mine lived out in Sacramento, CA. I stumbled into a local bike shop and saw Sherwood Gibson’s, US made aluminum mountain bikes that evolved over the years, into Ventana’s burly line of aluminum, full suspension, mountain bikes and mountain tandems. If I were looking to build a fat-tandem….Sherwood would be at the very top of the list.

Our test bike came to us, as a raw aluminum frame with red, white and blue graphics. The color scheme is complimented by Hope Fatsnow Hubs and a Raceface Turbine Crank in blue anodized that make this bike a real head turner. The rest of the build is made up of some really great choices. Wheels are Nates on drilled Rolling Darryls. The pilot controls are all by Thomson, including their gorgeous flat carbon handlebar. Paul Components Love Levers are connected to BB7’s and the 2 x 10 drivetrain is set up with Sram X9 trigger shifters. All really good, solid choices. We were told that Sherwood had put this build together and test ridden it himself before sending it off to us.

I built the El gordo bike up as soon as it arrived and threw it up on out Park scale. It weighed in at a svelte 30 lbs. 13 oz. I had the opportunity to ride this beautiful fat-bike for about a week and I really liked the way it rolled. I rode it on packed snow trail and on some paved bikejoring runs with my dogs and the thing, flat out rocks! But as I’m fond of saying…..”who cares what an old fart like me thinks?” That’s why we have a platoon of skilled test pilots that take these bike out and thrash them. As I’m writing this, BBR Test Pilot, Spinner Ryerson is out in Fruita, introducing El Gordo to the red rock of the Colorado Plateau! So stay tuned for a full review of the Ventana, El Gordo in the next month or so, right here, at fat dash bike dot com.

Go to http://www.ventanausa.com/ for more information about Ventana.