A few weeks back, on my sweep west in search of fat-bike stories, I made a stop at the Borealis Bikes shop in downtown Colorado Springs. The facility is in a really cool old building right in the heart of Downtown that does not evoke the typical look of an industrial park start up. If you want to learn more about how Borealis got it’s start check it out here. I going to go ahead and say we will have more on this bike in the future.
On the day I visited, Adam Miller was putting on the finishing touches on a new 29+ version of the Echo with one of the new RS-1 RockShox forks on it. (Notice how Jon Severson is eyeballing the Echo with envy!) Borealis have been working with RockShox to dial in the internal setup of the RS-1 to allow it to work safely with the 3.0 tire size common on 29+ bikes. It was impressive to say the least.
Everywhere you look around the Boriealis shop the place says “we are all about fat-bikes!” and an ample supply of fat rubber is one of the prerequsities.
From dual wheel building stations where wheel builders Aric Cecale and Chris Murray work their magic…
to the custom built spoke tensioning machine Adam is standing next to, Borealis puts an emphasis on well built wheels using their Borealis hubs and Turnagain RS80 rims.
Meanwhile, Fixie Dave Nice uses his considerable skill in assembling complete Borealis fat-bikes.
This here is Fixie Dave’s personal fat-bike! Ain’t got but one speed!
Up in the office Adam works with Teddy Link (marketing intern) and Michal Varge (graphic artist intern) on their web presence and all the other marketing needs of Borealis.
And, on the day after my visit to the shop, John and I joined the Borealis crew at a local mountain bike endurance race where they brought a bevy of fat-bikes for test riding purposes.
If you are in the area, give Adam a call for a visit. You’ll see first hand that these guys live and breath bikes, especially fat-bikes!
If you want to learn more about Borealis Fat-bikes check them out on the web at http://www.borealisbikes.com
How is Fixie Dave tension-ing his chain???? SS carbon sounds rad.
I’m using a Philcentric BB check it out here….
https://www.philwood.com/products/bbpages/philcentric.php
works very well but does take some futzing around to get it adjusted properly