St. Fatty’s weekend marks the half way point of ({[¡March Fatness!]}) for this year of our gnome, two thousand and fourteen. Last week saw the crowning of the winners of the 45 NRTH Great Lakes Fat Bike Race Series (Jorden Wakeley & Danielle Musto). The 9:Zero:7 Wisconsin Fat-Bike Race Series also awarded their series championship to Justin Piontek & Jen Barden and (as you all probably already know) Ned Overend and Jenna Rinehart won the first ever, US Fat-Bike National Championships at the Fat Bike Birkie. Congratulations to everyone involved for an incredible season of fat-bike competition and camaraderie! While the fat-bike race season slows down. in our neck or the woods, the race scene in Alaska continues on with the Homer Epic this weekend and the White Mountain 100 on March 28th. Both of these races traverse incredible scenery and should provide an exciting close to the 2013/14 winter race season!
As you read this, Sven is at the North American Handbuilt Bicycle Show in Charlotte, North Carolina, herding pixels on to his I-pad to share with us all weekend and be sure to check back, next week, to see his expanded fat-bike coverage from the NAHBS show floor!
This weekend Beeker and I are volunteering at brother Zito’s flying circus. We’ll be manning a checkpoint for the Milwaukee Messenger Invitational (MMI). I think I’ll bring that sweet new Ventana El Gordo test-bike so Colin can launch it off of whatever’s handy for the camera! We wish you all green beer, great rides and big smiles!
Don’t be shy about sharing your fatventures with us. Send your fat-bike photos, videos, poetry, theories, prognostications and manifestos to uncle gomez@fat-bike.com
Linkage
http://ahbmx.blogspot.com/2014/03/fatbikes – Florida Fat
http://fatbikebrigade.
http://bikeportland.org/2014/02/28/ – Bikepacking 101
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gomez – Nationals Outakes
http://www.bikegreaseandcoffee.com/ – Freedom Research Continues
http://www.mtbvt.com/archives/18895 – Winterbike Vermont Report
http://ifitwaseasyeveryonewoulddoit.com – Birkie Video
http://www.birkie.com/news_article/show/357754 – Fatbike Birkie news from the Birkie Foundation. Note that registration for the 2015 event opens on April 1st, 2014! Make a plan to be there next year!
http://m.bicycling.com/mountainbikecom/bikes-gear/wide-load?cm_mmc=Facebook-_-Bicycling-_-Content-Story-_-wide-load – Bicycling gets a clue, sort of.
http://www.cyclingutah.com/tech/fat-bikes-stay/ – Cycling Utah says “Fatbikes are here to stay”. Thanks, we thought so too.
http://bikelifeinswedishlapland.com/2014/03/10/kevin-on-ice-2/ – Englishman, Kevin, visits Swedish Lapland with his Pug.
Bike Industry News
http://fat-bike.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Fatback-News-Release.jpg – Fatback Hires New Brand Manager
Fatback’s New Brand Manager – Fuzzy John Mylne by Devon Balet
Reader Gallery
-
- Brad Heyman – Kamloops BC
-
- David Glover – Quad Cities IA-IL
-
- Gomez & Cowboy – bike-joring Westosha WI
-
- Jason Luther – Lake Huron
-
- Nicolas Rainon – French Alps
-
- Ray Brown – New Bruswick, Canada
I don’t mean to be a downer here but nothing destroys my faith in cycling like Bicycling Magazine. Can’t even give a nod to a fatbike for the love of just riding a bike without saying “Make sure you get a Trek or a Specialized, Pugsleys suck, and make sure you have a conventional mountain bike for conventional trails. God forbid your Stava times are a little slower for the sake having more fun on a bicycle.” —Everything that’s wrong with the commercialism of cycling in a nutshell.