Let’s kick it up a few notches… Summer, this time of year is when I start thinking of shorter days and colder temps and with that brings Global Fat Bike Day. This year the date falls on December 7th for peeps from all around our universe to get out on their own or with a […]
Last month was the hottest July in recorded history and true to form, it was sweltering in the days leading up to my reservations for a bikepacking trip to the Kettle Moraine State Forest. I’d managed to reserve a sequential pair of backpacking shelters along the Ice Age Trail, which is why you see the […]
3 years ago I walked this area with one of my sons as a reccy for a fat bike ride. It soon become clear that this was no place to try to ride a bike as it would have involved a fair bit of pushing. Fast forward a couple of years and in May of […]
Spinner Ryerson is the host of our new podcast called the Burning Bike Podcast. The premier episode was recorded at Silver Lake State Park on the shores of Lake Michigan in the State of Michigan. Spinner is joined by Sven & Gomez along with two Daves and my old QQQQ amigo Robb. on a 100 […]
Testing bags at Kettle Moraine photo by Justin (Case) We have two bags from our amigos at Revelate designs in for review. The Salty Roll Dry Bag and the Egress Pocket. I’m integrating these two new components into my bikepacking set up alongside the fork bag test that we’re running. Egress Pocket Let’s take a […]
Today’s video has the International House of Fat-Bikes seal of Approval! Tres amigos in matching green shirts chronicle their trip to Western Australia and the good times roll! This is Episode one, so follow FatTraction on YouTube to see more from these cats. Would you share your Plus or Fat Pixels? Give us your tired, your […]
June 21st and the summer solstice luckily fell on a Friday, and luckily for me I finish work early on a Friday! YEAH!! The sun was shining, the forecast was good so a quick plan hatched to bivvy out for the night. I’ve had my eye on this sheltered spot facing east for some time […]
A micro-adventure film exploring Scotland’s Glen Affric. The Highland Trail 550 bike race included it as part of their route it is that good. The competitors some of whom we bumped into will remember this if nothing else. Scotland’s weather is unpredictable! The weather forecast is a mere guideline then moves. So, through the art […]
509 Jabit III 27.5+ at Hartmans Creek State Park (WI) Photo by Kurt Geiger Welcome to Summer 2019! We thought that it would be nice to celebrate the first day of Summer with an old school WDoF post like we used to do before we started the podcast with the same name. I’m headed to […]
Fraser Island, off Australia’s eastern Queensland coast, is the world’s largest sand island, encompassing seventy-one square miles. Our amigo Eckart Altenkamp clued our staff and readers into just how beautiful Fraser Island call look through a camera lens with his Wallpaper Wednesday Series, but this isn’t Wednesday. This is Fat Video Tuesday! So here’s a […]
This year’s bivvy a month campaign hasn’t really got going as much as I had planned. In January I managed to get a couple of days riding in the heart of mid Wales on my gravel bike. February saw me ride to a mountain cottage in the local snowy hills which was great on the […]
On January 4th and 5th, this year, Jay Petervary hosted the 200 mile and 200k Fat Pursuit events, in Island Park, Idaho. We are very familiar with this event. Bryon participated in the event last year and I volunteered at the West Yellowstone Checkpoint. Jay is our neighbor and we try to get out and […]
News Release from our friends at Revelate Designs Anchorage, Alaska, January 23, 2019 – Constantly innovating and improving, Revelate Designs pushes forward with the release of the Polecat, a unique drybag built for use in large volume cargo cages, and the Terrapin System 14L, a full redesign of their flagship seat bag. “Cargo cages have […]
Jeff Price sent us a compilation video that covers all twelve of his Bivvy a Month trips from 2018. If this doesn’t get you stoked to take up the quest to complete the Bivvy a Month Challenge for 2019, nothing will! I got out a few times in 2018 in what some might say was […]
Who’s Henty? That was my first question too. Founded in Tasmania, Australia, (yeah, that’s a real place) Henty started out making suit and garment bags for business clothes. They’ve been adding different versions of these bags and have a line of bags and packs specifically designed for active commuting. The Enduro was launched […]
Tom Ice sent us a compilation video that covers all twelve of his Bivvy a Month trips from 2018. If this doesn’t get you stoked to take up the quest to complete the Bivvy a Moth Challenge for 2019, nothing will! I got out a few times in 2018 in what some might say was […]
Bivvy a Month Challenge Global Fat Bike Day 2018 We all know December 1st 2018 was ‘our’ special day as it was this year’s Global Fat Bike Day. However it was made even more special for me this year as I bagged my final Bivvy a Month for the year. I’ve organised the last […]
Fat Bike Snowdon #BAMfatbike2018 I must admit, I’ve not been ‘feeling it’ the last few months when it came to getting out and that probably showed by the last 3 BAM’s being on the last weekend of the month. I needed that to change, so I picked an area that ‘ticks’ my boxes and […]
Fat Bike to the Bothy #BAMfatbike2018 Despite trying to get more organised with my bivvy a month rides October took place on the last night of the month, Halloween night!! I initially had plans to spend a couple of days on one of the islands on the west coast of Scotland but the impending forecast […]
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 […]
Burley Design celebrated it’s 40th anniversary this year. The company has grown and changed over the years since, Alan Scholz, co-owner of Burley Bike Bags designed the first Burley trailer to transport his hand-made bags (30 miles) to a market where he sold them each week. Along with the bags, Alan also carried his daughter and […]
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 […]
So bivvy a month number 9 came by way to quick, so once again I got out on the last weekend of the month! Luckily the weather was on my side for this again. Once again I stayed fairly local to me with just a short 25 minute car journey to the start of the […]
Our family spent 3 weeks biking 900 miles in Alaska. This is the third of three parts describing our journey. Read Part One Here and Part Two Here. After a day and a half of rest, much-needed showers, laundry, and resupplying on food, while binge eating pizza and ice cream, we started the next segment […]
Our family spent 3 weeks biking 900 miles in Alaska. This is the second part of three parts describing our journey. Click here to read Part One. Our adventures of fat biking through Alaska began in the city of Anchorage. Anchorage is a typical metropolitan area. There are tall buildings, lots of traffic, and plenty of […]
Alaska, the 49th state, is the largest of the states. It is three times the size of Texas, with 57,432,650 acres of wilderness. Most of this great state is not accessible by road. Of the miles accessible by road, our family tackled 900 miles of Alaska pavement and gravel this August. Our family’s journey, […]
I spied one of the prototypes for the Backcountry Stitch Works (BSW) Aww Snap (strapless) frame bags on Will Ross’ Hawt Pank Langxx last year just around the time of the Fat Nationals in Michigan. I quizzed Will about his fuchsia bike purse and he told me that the bag was pretty sweet. So I tried to get […]
Bivvy a Month #8 – Take Two!! Well, when I set out to do the Bivvy a Month Challenge I knew they’d be challenges. Despite a so far successful year with my rides and the weather, my luck seemed to run out towards the end of August. I had my route planned so I […]
This bikepacking adventure was born out of looking at the map and seeing what looks remote yet kind of flat for the bikes. It was also to tick off visiting another part of Scotland we had not been to before. A small further motivation to visit Loch Etive was to find the location of the […]
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) […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
It has been almost 5 months here in Peru and just like any other long stay like that I had the urge to change country, scenery, and experience. Eventually, the constant up and down in the rain can get tedious and all these beautiful mountains and remote mines start blending together into something less […]
Slate The summer made a brief appearance over the UK with a couple for days of nice warm weather so it was initiate #BAMfatbike2018 making this 4/4/ The area I picked is steeped in history as it was once the largest open slate quarry in the world. Slate put Wales on the map was shipped […]
Within the first hour of our five-day bikepacking trip through the White Mountains, north of Fairbanks, we shared the trail with skiers, snowmachiners, one dog team, and a flock of fellow fat-bikers. The area is an oasis for such users, where one can penetrate into the winter-laden woods from the comfort of a groomed […]
Apidura Backcountry Bags With virtually the full set of Apidura’s Backcountry series of bikepacking bags landing on my doorstep you could say I was a little excited to try them out, and with my Bivvy a Month #2 just around the corner you could say it was great timing! As stated on the Apidura website […]
A few months ago, we had decided we wanted to bikepack in Grand Staircase-Escalante. After many weeks of cold and clouds, our family was ready to head south to the desert for spring break. Neither Bryon nor myself had heard of the national monument, until this past year. After spending 3 days riding close […]
