I have been testing the 27.5 x 4.5 Terrene Cake Eaters since late fall and up until very recently Mother Nature has not been very giving with the snowfall in our area. Luckily we got about 4′ of snow in 10 days recently and it allowed me to get out and get a more well-rounded […]
At the beginning of this winter I got a bunch of tires to test, mostly of the 27.5 fat variety. Of the tires I have available, I have been riding the 27.5×4 45NRTH Van Helgas far more than anything else. Part of this is because Mother Nature had been stingy with snow but even more […]
The 27.5 fat tire selection continues to expand and this is the second tire that 45NRTH has offered in the 27.5 size (the other being the Dillinger 4). For those of you not familiar with the 45NRTH line of tires, the Van Helga is their more aggressive 4″ tire that is designed for “all-round mixed […]
There are a lot of people excited about the Terrene Johnny 5 because it has been touted as a potential Bud/Lou challenger and I have to list myself as one of them. That said, I think I am actually even more excited about another Terrene tire; the 27.5×4.5″ Cake Eater. I didn’t realize this until […]
Uncle Gomez sent me a set of 27.5 carbon fat bike wheels recently. You can check out the “product spotlight” he wrote up but the basic stats of this wheelset are the following: Exterior width: 75mm Interior width: 69mm Front weight: 1,053g (with tape and valve stem) Rear weight: 1,164g (with tape and valve stem) […]
People like to geek out on gear lists. I am one of those people. I always get ideas by seeing how other people roll. To give back to the bike packing community, here is my addition to the gear list cannon. This is what I used for 18 days and around 800 miles of riding […]
This turned into a two-part podcast because of how long it ended up being. In the first part of the show, Ken interviews Gabe Tiller who is the executive director of the Oregon Timber Trail Alliance and the primary route creator for the Oregon Timber Trail. Here is a link to Ken’s geeky summary of his […]
QuietKat is not a company I was familiar with until recently. This is mostly because they specialize in e-fat bikes which are not exactly my jam. Based on the QuietKat site it looks like a big part of their clientele are hunters so they offer a single wheel fat bike trailer to haul hunting equipment […]
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 […]
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″ […]
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 […]
It’s been a couple months since Ken and Andy sat down and did some blah, blah, blah. And for this show, there’s quite a bit. 1.5 hours of it. So hit play or download it for later but whatever you do, make sure to give #31 a listen. Here’s what’s happening for this show: What […]
This winter I have been testing out a pair of studded 26×4″ Terrene Cake Eater “light” casing tires. For full specs on these tires, check out my Initial Look. My neck of the woods got bombarded with snow in December and early January but then Mother Nature turned off the snow spigot and gave us […]
In recent years there has been an explosion in the number of groomed fat bike trails. During this trend, we have seen a huge variety of different grooming solutions from homemade contraptions to companies selling finished products. Rollers were sort of the first wave of successful fat bike grooming implements because they could […]
A pair of Lake MXZ 400 boots, size 50 recently arrived on my doorstep. Many fat bikers are familiar with their MXZ 300 line (the current version is the MXZ 303) because it has been the go to winter cycling boot for as long as I can remember (well over a decade now). The MXZ […]
Terrene is the new kid on the block for tire companies but already have a second studded fat tire tread available in their line up. Last year they introduced the Wazia which falls in the all-round to aggressive range of “knobbiness.” This year Terrene is offering the Cake Eater as a faster rolling fat […]
It’s Fat Camp time again and it’s show #30. In the midst of the deep freeze, Ken and Andy chat with Nate Phelps, race promoter of the Winter Rush fat bike race at Big M in Wellston, Michigan, about the nitty gritty of the race and what racers and fans should expect. What’s […]
Welcome to Fat Camp show #29, just in time for the holiday season and hopefully some gosh darn snow in the land of the hand. Here’s what’s on tap for this most recent episode: Need warm feet? flats pedals and boots or spend the dough for 45 NRTH Lake Cold Cycling Shoes ESI grip […]
Andy gets a Salsa Deadwood! Ken rides Marji Gesick 100, or at least part of it… Moral of the story, don’t skimp on tires for this race; ride burly tires. Over a Beer: 5 Reasons Why Plus-Size Tires Are Overrated We discuss some of the different fat bike fork options and who should consider each […]
Welcome to episode 27 of the Fat Camp Podcast all you gnome hunters out there. It’s time to settle in for part deux of KBS’s recap of his August bikepacking adventure on the Colorado Trail. In this episode of Fat Camp, Ken shares his stories with Andy on second half of his trip which […]
Ken and Andy are back in the studio with the skinny on everything fat (or plus). Fat Camp show #26 starts out (as usual) with a little nugget of tech talk that involves Velocity and Stans. That’s about all the tech you’re going to get with this show. You see, the brains of the podcast […]
The Fat Camp is back again for another techy discussion of fat and plus bikes and this time, it’s all about geometry. No, not the class you had to take back in high school, where you sat next to smartest kid you could find, so you could pass the class. We’re talking frame geometry […]
Ken and Andy are back from spring hiatus for episode 24 of FatCamp Podcast. For this 24th edition of the camp the guys keep it moving straight forward and rarely veer off topic. Let’s face it, life gets complicated and practical reality slaps us in the face every once in a bit. Luckily, the dynamic […]
Plus Stuff From the Second Annual Maxxis Summit at Mulberry Gap Maxxis jumped into plus tires in a big way in recent years and has developed what is arguably the most complete lineup of plus sized tires (at least for 27.5+) of any tire company. They have everything from the fast rolling Icon all […]
Maxxis recently held their annual “Summit” in the mountains of Northern Georgia at the Mulberry Gap Mountain Bike Resort. Maxxis had some exciting news to announce on the fat bike tire front so my podcasting partner Andy and I got to head down and get the skinny on their fat. There will be a following […]
My local cycling club (Shoreline Cycling Club) recently acquired a Best Tracksled for $5,400 to use to groom a 16-17 mile loop at the Big M in Manistee National Forest which is in the northern portion of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. I have clocked about 8 hours so far using it to groom trail and […]
This has been one of those winters where I have been pretty darned stoked to be testing studded tires. It seems like every other weekend has been “studded tire only” conditions due to a big melt and freeze cycle. During this time the 4.6″ studded Terrene Wazia tires have become my best friend because they […]
I sit here and write this while psyching myself up for another 3-4 hour ride of breaking trail on the Cannolis. It has been a good winter here on the west coast of the northern lower peninsula of Michigan and we have already gotten over 5′ of snowfall. We got the okay from the National […]
It is kind of funny, last year/season we saw a flood of similar “me-to” fat bikes from manufacturers trying to jump on the fat bike bandwagon. Everyone seemed to want to pile on the fat bike craze. From those heady times, we have seen some really interesting and fresh bikes emerge for the 2017 season. […]
Bearclaw Bike Co. is a name that many people may not be familiar with but I am guessing if you follow the fat bike race scene (in Michigan) it will be a name you start to see a whole lot more. The first offering from Bearclaw is the Balthazar and it is an unapologetic race […]
Terrene is a new name on the fat bike block but is a company that brings some street cred to the neighborhood. Terrene is managed by Tim Krueger who previously worked as a brand manager for Salsa Cycles and is the founder of Advocate Cycles. Terrene recently came out with three tires: the Wazia which […]
Uncle Gomez and the folks from Vittoria Tire recently helped Christmas come a bit early and sent me a pair of Vittoria Cannoli 26 x 4.8″ tires to test out. This is a tire I am pretty darned stoked about. The Surly Bud and Lou’s have been the king of the hill for all around […]
This is only “kind of” a mid-term report on my Quiring Triple B. There really was never an initial report on it but if you follow the Fat Camp Podcast here on Fat-Bike.com you will undoubtably have heard me talk about it and it is tough to talk about the Vee Tire 2XL tires […]
When I got my Quiring Triple B bike this fall one of the first things I thought about was getting a frame bag. I love having a frame bag to stash gear in during any season but especially during the winter where having some extra warm gear can be a life saver. The problem was […]
After Labor Day and into fall is an ideal time to beach ride along the shore of Lake Michigan. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways: The lake is still warm making early morning starts 10-15 degrees warmer and a heck of a lot nicer There are generally still a lot of warm, […]
This is a short-term/initial thoughts review. I have only gotten about a month of time on these tires but luckily it was long enough to get in rides with a wide enough range of conditions from mid-winter to spring snow. This was more than enough time to get a good feel for them. If you […]
Let me just get to the point and write that these tires are da bomb. They are fairly light (for a 3” 29er tire), the tread design rolls well, grips like a slot car in most conditions, seems to have good durability and has awesome tubeless characteristics. If you are looking for 29er+ tires, I […]
Luckily, after a long drought of alternatives in 29er+ tires, there has started to be a flood of options being introduced. Bontrager is the latest company to send us tires to test and it looks to be a super solid contender. Named after a mythical blood sucking creature, I can already tell you there is nothing sucky about this […]
I recently had the pleasure of stopping by Quiring Cycles World Headquarters in Freesoil, MI and picking up our new fat tandem. We asked Scott to build up the frame to fit the widest tires and rims available because Wifey and I are planning to play on this beasty during all four seasons. On a […]
The Maxxis Chronicle was a tire I was super excited about as soon as I saw pictures of it on the interwebs. Luckily, it hasn’t disappointed and riding it has been a case of love at first corner. All of that said, this isn’t a tire I would run on both ends of my bike […]
About a month ago I got a package from Fat-Bike.com world headquarters with a pair of Vee Tire Trax Fatty 29 x 3.0” tires. This is the same pair that they took a First Look at back in April and that article contains all of the numbers for the TF. I say, ‘screw the numbers’, I […]
Back in December I wrote about my new Quiring fat bike (Achieving Fat-Bike Versatility). That article got into how the bike can switch geometry to suit different riding conditions such as summer and winter fat biking. This summer I have been exploring another aspect of the bike: A summer fat bike setup versus a 29er+ […]
Ed: One of the main topics at the Global Fatbike Summit happening in Ogden, Utah this weekend, as well as the just concluded Midwest Fatbike Summit in Cable, WI, is the topic of Grooming Trails for Fatbikes. We are fortunate to have Ken Blakey-Shell’s experience grooming snow trails for various uses to give us a primer. […]
This review comes after about 20 hours and 150 miles of trail riding. A vast majority of that riding took place in fresh snow because Northern Michigan got a heaping helping of December snow this year. I tried to get onto groomed trails as much as possible but even those were still fairly loose due […]
