The final stop of my December trip to visit three Michigan bicycle companies landed me in Traverse City, Michigan. I made arrangements to meet at Einstein Cycles with both Keith Conway, who manages the shop and Jason Lowetz who owns both Einstein Cycles and the Bearclaw Bicycle Company. Einstein Cycles (Jason) launched the Bearclaw Bicycle Co. […]
The last time that I’d visited Scott and Christina Quiring at their shop in Free Soil Michigan was back in the spring of 2012. Free Soil sits between hundreds of thousands of acres of National Forest and one of the best Lake Michigan beaches that I’ve ever ridden. It’s a veritable Fat-Bike Paradise. I’ve been fortunate to […]
Earlier in December, I visited three Michigan bicycle companies on a short press junket and this is the first story that I’ll write from those travels. My first stop on the trip was to RAD Bicycle Company which is run by Matt Craig and Mark Major in Pinckney Michigan. RAD is focused on making handmade steel plus […]
This is the second report from a Road Trip to points west of the Mississippi last month. After spending a rainy weekend in Fruita, to visit some friends, I made my way to Carbondale Colorado to get a peek behind the Titanium Curtain at Why Cycles. It poured rain all the way there and my […]
After a failed launch attempt in August, Road Trip 2018 blasted off from the Colonel Steve Austin pedal powered proving grounds in central ‘sconsin at the beginning of Rocktober. My initial stop was in Emporia, Kansas to attend mi hermano de otra madre, Adam Blake’s Wedding. Which meant that I was already halfway to Colorado […]
The Susitna Bicycle Institute (SBI) is a non-profit education center offering a wide range of classes from introductory to advance level bike mechanic classes here in Anchorage. SBI offers a sliding fee scale for classes that accommodate all levels of experience and income. All proceeds go back into the growth of SBI and the support […]
If any of you have been to an Outdoor Demo during Interbike in Las Vegas you will probably recognize Boulder City as the home of Bootleg Canyon, the shreddin’ MTB Park that is the home of said Outdoor Demo. Well, pretty much at the base of the mountain sits All Mountain Cyclery and, while I […]
Vlad from Vlad Cycles recently sent us some shots of his new fat-bike, called the Impaler, from the Philly Bike Expo and we thought it was time to revisit Vlad since we first looked at this Troika fat-bike in a Reader’s Ride(s) story a couple of years back so we decided to do this fat-bike […]
Chapter 5 – Borealis Fat Bikes – Colorado Springs Colorado The last stop on my Field Trip to the West was to Borealis Fat Bikes and the Fat Bike Company in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Borealis is in the process to moving into their new, much larger, facility. I met the CEO of Borealis, Steve Kaczmarek, at […]
Chapter 3 – Moots Cycle – Steamboat Springs Colorado The third stop on my trip out west led me over gorgeous mountain passes from the front range out to Steamboat Springs. The plan was to visit Moots Cycles and talk about their long history of making fat-bikes and see what goes into manufacturing their newest fat-bike the […]
Chapter 2 – REEB Cycles – Longmont Colorado While I was visiting Boo up in Fort Collins, our compadre, Chris Reichel, (aka Dirty Biker) was down at REEB Cycles in Longmont (about a half hour south of FoCo) getting ready to lauunnch the #greatwhitebuffalo tour from the Oskar Blues Brewery in Colorado to the O.B. Brewery in Asheville […]
Do you remember field trips back in grade school? You had to get your parents to sign a permission slip and then on the day of the trip, pack a brown bag lunch with your name written in magic marker on the outside. The idea behind field trips were probably educational, but as a kid, I […]
Early on a Tuesday morning in May, I got a phone call from everyone’s favorite fatbike web guru, Gomez. He asked me what I have planned for the last week of June. Coincidentally, I was just about to quit my job and start traveling right about that time. Gomez then informed me that Lauf Forks, […]
Today’s article is sort of a two for one dealio. In the first part of the article, I share a little builder profile action on Matter Cycles and in the second segment, Colin Ford, gives you his first impressions of the Matter Cycles, Benefat. ~Enjoy the Ride…or…Read!~ Matter Cycles is a one man custom frame fabricator […]
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 […]
Moonmen Bikes hasn’t been around all that long but the cred of the founders goes back a long ways in the Fort Collins Bike scene. Both Todd Heath and Paul Knowles had stints at James Bleakley’s legendary Black Sheep Bikes with Todd putting in 10 years, from the tender age of 17, under James’ tutelage. […]
The Neve at the North American Handbuilt Bicycle Show We featured Dave Wage’s NAHBS, Award Winning, Neve, fat-bike in a story written by mi primo, Sven, last month. You can check out more shots of this beautiful frame, before it was powdercoated there – http://fat-bike.com/2014/03/seen-at-nahbs-ellis-fillet-brazed-fat-bike/. Fat-Bike’s home base, here on earth, is located in South Eastern […]
This is the final Episode in our Alaska Series (till we return)…In this segment we share a visit that I had with Eric Parsons at Revelate Designs. We’ll also show you Revelate’s new Williwaw Pogies along with a matching frame bag. Revelate Designs is probably the most recognized brand of frame bag in both Alaska and […]
Greg Matyas is the captain of the USS Fatback. A fat-bike maker, true to its Alaskan heritage. I chose to introduce Greg, in such a manner, because Greg posseses the charisma of Jame T. Kirk along with a good balanced helping of pirate ship captain. Greg’s one of those guys that you want to follow […]
My trip to Anchorage probably would have not happened without Bill Fleming’s invitation to come and spend a week, to check out 9:Zero:7’s operation. Bill is one of the founders of 9:Zero:7 and during my trip, I stayed with Bill and his wife Sheryl. They even set me up with one of their gorgeous carbon […]
With the current expansion of fat bike brands available to consumers, now, more than ever, it’s important to work with a bike shop that knows fat-bikes from the inside out. In a good fat-bike shop, the owner or staff actually ride fat bikes. That way they know, through practical experience, what works and what accessories to […]
Anyone that’s been to the mountain bike trails of the Southern Kettle Moraine State Forest in SE Wisconsin has at the very least driven by Backyard Bikes or they might have even stopped, next door, at the LaGrange General Store for one of their delicious homemade sandwiches. The Bettinger family has been slinging snacks and bikes […]
Schwag has been selling bikes in the Appleton, WI area since 2007 and has a very fat-bike friendly manager in the person of Shane Veldhuizen. When Shane isn’t racing, and often winning, on his 38 Frameworks fat-bike in the Wisconsin Off Road Racing Series (WORS for short and America’s largest state mountain bike racing series) […]
Lynskey Performance Designs – Tennessee based, Ti Bicycle maker – One time, fabricator of Fat-Bike frames for Fatback and Salsa – is looking for suggestions on what to re-name their new entry into the fat-bike arena. It seems that the name that you see on the top tube of the bicycle (pictured above) already graces […]
QBP’s newest bike brand, Cogburn Outdoors, is targeting hunters, anglers and foragers with their new hydro-dipped camo fat-bike called the CB4. I’ve done a bit of hunting and I can totally see how a fat bike with racks could help in many different disciplines of hunting and fishing. Load up a pack full of decoys […]
In our endless pursuit to bring you fat-bike news and culture from around the world, we present Blue Lug – a very unique bike shop from Japan. After seeing some of the incredible work that they produce, I reached out to the owner of Blue Lug, Wakako. She shared insights into her shop’s philosophy and […]
Patrice Drouin spent 20 years as a designer in the auto industry in France before focusing his vision on making quality custom bicycles. He started Vagabonde Cycles in 2008 and since then has crafted more than 200 bikes. We feel fortunate today, because we get to share Vagabonde Cycles very first Fat-Bike. Patrice designed his […]
With just a few days until the North American Hand-built Bike Show, Bob Keller, from Bob Keller Frameworks answered a few questions about his fillet brazed, steel fat-bikes. He will be attending the show with a super looking fat-bike design that highlights his construction techniques with a cool paint scheme that shows a fine red […]
That’s the photo that led me to come in contact with our new amigo from the Netherlands, Tommy. I learned that Tommy is a guide at Lola Bikes and Coffee and that the shop runs Fat-Bike Tours in The Hague, the capitol city, of the Netherlands, nestled on the sandy shores of the North Sea. Every […]
16″ (small) – 18″ (medium) – 20″ (large) –14″ and 22″ are also available. I’ve been trading emails with my Aussie amigos for the last 5 or 6 months about their new Fat-Bike company called MURU Cycles. “Muru” means, “the path”. Muru cycles plans to embrace the feeling of freedom and adventure, that ‘the path’ invokes, with […]
Vibe Cycles out in Boise Idaho first popped up on our fat-bike radar with a bamboo fatty that was spied at the North American Hand Built Bicycle Show last March. Dave and Christi, from Vibe, have been keeping in touch, with us, and contacted me a few weeks ago, about their new custom hydro-formed aluminum fat-bike, called….the […]
My first visit to Central District Cyclery was last winter on rainy February afternoon. I was on a whirlwind tour that took me to 616, CDC and Quiring Cycles. CDC is right in the center of downtown Grand Rapids – right next to GR Police Headquarters. The shop is in a sleek 3100 square foot […]
As you read this, mi amigo James and I are starting a fat-packing trip from Whitefish Point to Grand Marais in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. James will be testing some Oveja Negra bags on our 3 day, seventy mile journey. James took a few preview shots on his test run of the Oveja Negra set-up – […]
We always keep our eyes peeled for new and emerging talent in the industry. In the case of Kristofer Henry and 44 Bikes, it was Kristofer’s graphic design work that led us to this incredible story of how his custom bicycle fabrication shop was born. Graphic and industrial design talent, combined in balance, is a rare […]
Straight out’s Fairbanks – (in the) with an AK – Becker Sewing & Design is another one man bag operation (like Barking Bear and Porcelain Rocket) that has sprung up in the face of the fat-bike revolution that has spread across the world from the land of moose and permafrost. We have NOT gotten our […]
While Gomez and I were in Northern Michigan’s Mitten for the St Fattys Day event we had the opportunity to chat with Jason Snell from Barking Bear Bagworks located not far from the event location in Conway, MI. He had several bags built specifically for fat-bikes including the Pugsley and the Moonlander. I followed up […]
I met up with Scott Quiring at his Free Soil, shop late on a Friday afternoon, on a recent whirlwind tour of the Michigan’s mitten. Scott and I had been trading emails over the winter, where he sent me a few snaps of his personal stainless steel, singlespeed belt drive fat-bike. Scott’s shop is on […]
To give you an idea of how compact the world of fat bikes is, I met the owner of A-Train Cycles, Alex Cook, a few years ago, when I became his very first customer by purchasing a custom porteur front rack for my pugsley. Back then, Alex was working for a bike shop and welded […]
Great minds from two iconic Michigami MTB Brands joined forces to form 616 Bicycle Fabrication last July. John Muezenmeyer , founder of Nuke Proof, and Aaron Joppe of Slingshot bicycles wanted to create a hand-built-in-the-mitten bicycle company that leverages the manufacturing might of western Michigan. 616 makes fat-bike frames, forks, hubs, and soon they’ll have their […]
Freewheel Bike has 3 locations in MPLS and last month I sat down at the West Bank store with Freewheel Bike, General Manager, Jake Helmbrecht, to talk fat-bikes and share a guess at what might be new and exciting at Frostbike. Jake talked to us about Freewheel’s Winter Bike Expo that was held, last December, at […]
Out of the Sierra Madre Mountains – Old Man Mountain (OMM) has a rich history in Mountain Bike touring racks that reflect their company philosophy – “don’t discriminate, innovate”. That’s why OMM built the first mountain touring racks designed to work with suspension mountain bikes and why they’ve brought that mind-set to their racks made for Fat-Bikes. […]
Just two years young, Angry Catfish Bicycles and Coffee in South Minneapolis has made quite a splash on the Twin Cities Fat-Bike scene. Several of our MPLS amigos told me that Ben (General Manager) and Josh (Owner) are king-pins of the fat-bike scene thereabouts….and MPLS is nigh a small pond of fat-bikes. Josh and Ben […]
I’ve been buying cycling clothes custom made by Lou Binik for a couple of years now and I like his gear so much that I approached him for an interview to get a bit of insight into the man behind every piece of Foxwear clothing; all hand-made in Idaho, right here in the US of […]
Watson Cycles makes the Great Divide Fat Tire fat-bike and we recently had the opportunity to ask Andrew Watson about his inspiration and experiences with fat-bikes. Read on, gentle readers! When did you first discover fat-bikes and what was your initial impression? More than 10 years ago I was digging around in my friend’s basement […]
