The second leg of my recent trip to the Upper Penninsula of Michigan took me to the east side and the tiny hamlet of Moran, home of Bearclaw Bikes. Moran is near the gateway to the Eastern UP not too far from Mackinac Island Ferry but far enough away to fly completely under the radar […]
I’ve had a plan to get up to the UP to ride for at least a couple of years. Ever since Jason at Bearclaw Bikes announced their drop-bar fatty called the TOWMAK I dreamt about returning to the vast Huron National Forest and its hundreds of miles of rustic roads, trails, and beaches. So when […]
Happy Arbor Day amigos! I’m back at the test bunker after a few days in da’UP and I thought that I’d take a peek at some of the pixels that I collected. This one seemed to jump off the camera!
Dan Fedewa sent in this shot, which piqued my curiosity, so I asked him if he could tell us a little bit more about his photo. This is what Dan shared. Sure….crossing the “ice bridge” from St. Ignace Michigan to Mackinac island (British Landing) on February 5th 2022. We rode around the island. The picture […]
You all should be familiar with the name Todd Poquette. He’s the cat behind the 906 Adventure Team and the race director of the Polar Roll, The Marji Gesick, and the Crusher bike races. He’s kind of a big deal. Well now, Todd is also the man behind something called Made UP. As far as […]
Will Guarino sent in this week’s Wallpaper Wednesday feature photo. I like it when our readers send in a photo with a description in their own vernacular. Here’s what Will shared about his photo. Enjoying your site ever since I test rode an old Beargrease and realized I HAD to have a fatbike of my […]
Todd Poquette Facebook messengered me a link to this week’s Fat (Tuesday) Video. It’s a trailer for the movie, Unforgettable. The movie is about a bicycle tour around the outer perimeter of the Upper Penninsula of Michigan. They claim that the UP has been left off of a bunch of maps. I say that they’ve […]
The Polar Roll 2022: Year of the Mullet The Polar Roll Fat Bike Race takes place in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula every February. It has taken up space on my race calendar for years due in part to my belief in the 906 Adventure Club’s mission, but also for the challenge. My first crack at The […]
Today’s Wallpaper Wednesday comes to us from Derek McClain. Derek’s a veteran of the WW photo feature bag. The picture, taken by a gnome, shows Derek shredding some powder and packing the line at Mosquito Creek Trails in Muskegon, Michigan after a fresh dump of snow early January 2022. #giddyup Feel free to download this image and use […]
http://www.sbfbs.com/ Tio Gomez chats with Tim Reicha and John Roe about the upcoming Shorts Brewing Fat Bike Series. The five-race series is up in the Northern Mitten of Michigan. How can you go wrong with races that rock names like ‘Fat & Fluroius’, ‘Dogman’, or my favorite, ‘Huma Loopa Licious’? The series is held in […]
http://www.sbfbs.com/ The Shorts Brewing Fat Bike Series has been around since day one up in the Northern Mitten of Michigan. How can you go wrong with races that rock names like ‘Fat & Fluroius’, ‘Dogman’, or my favorite, ‘Huma Loopa Licious’? Way back in the day, Dave Lunz and I took second place (also DFL) […]
One of our Grand Rapids amigos, Thom Goodyke gave me the thumbs up, when I asked him about beach riding conditions on the Michigan side of the Great Lake with the same name. That set my imagination on fire with fat-bike-beach images from the past. I cut my teeth riding mountain bikes in the Wolverine […]
I should probably put some sort of #bikeporn warning at the beginning of this little Fat-Tandem Centerfold from Quiring Cycles. This all started when one of our readers reached out in an email to me and asked who could make him and his bride a fat tandem? That made me think about Scott and Christina Quiring […]
This week’s Wallpaper Wednesday hits Spring like a hammer and a nail. Late March and early April are mud season up north. Sometimes it’s so bad the only option is to become a roadie! Other times your can explore places that no other bicycle dare roam. This is Kyle Ocho’s first WW feature, but I […]
This week’s Wallpaper Wednesday is Brandon Bender’s sophomore feature and is what you’d call a ‘double-wide trailer’ sort of opus. Brandon sized and cropped the photo such that it will perfectly fill dual 1920×1080 monitors side by side. The location of the shot is one of my favorite beach towns on the other side of the […]
The Big M Fire Tower Fat Bike Open Pure Michigan Fat-Bike Racing!
This week’s Wallpaper Wednesday comes to us from Brandon Bender from over in Michigan. This is what Brandon shared about his photo. Ayyye. Attached are a few pictures I took on the Lake Michigan shore near Grand Haven, MI.. When the trails are trashed here in west Michigan, the beach is the next go-to when […]
This Fat Tuesday video comes to us from our amigo Cole House. Cole has been on our podcast a couple of times and I knew that this cat can fly on any bicycle but I never knew that he was such an accomplished videographer! Check out the trails in Marquette Michigan and ring your cowbell […]
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 […]
Fat-Tribe Thursday is a distant cousin of Throwback Thursday. Back in the day, we used to share photos from fat-bikers from around the world under the byline ‘Fat-Tribe Thursday’. It’s sort of like a modernized version of the “Magic Mirror” bit at the end of Romper Room. I don’t remember why we picked Thursday, but […]
This week’s Wallpaper Wednesday comes to us from Bryan Coleman. Bryan caught this flotilla of fat-bikes amid some epic icicles on what looks like some sort of flume or spillway. Bryan shared a few other shots from Michigan that created a sort of kinship in my mind because of the similar settings in the photos […]
Editor’s Note: There are so many builders of exquisite bicycles located all over the US that can’t take the time or expense to hit NAHBS every year. Other shows like the one in Philly draw regional builders. The great lakes or the mid-west area doesn’t have a regional handbuilt show and it’s been a while […]
I was drawn to Afterglow Lake Resort by their incredible social media photo-stream. The intense sunset photography made me think back to shooting Kodachrome slide film and spoke to one of my life-long passions (photography). And it didn’t hurt that their photos feature two Bernese Mountain Dogs along with a Golden Retriever at the lodge to […]
Last time that I was up to visit Scott & Christina Quiring we talked a lot about 27.5 fat-bike wheels and Scott told me that he was working on a bike specifically designed to run the new sized wheels with the new gargantuan Terrene Tires 4.5″ Cake Eaters…(Project Abominable) We left an asset in place […]
Looks like everyone got the memo to run their Fat-Bike event on February 2nd this winter. I don’t know how things are percolating in your neck of the woods, but here in the big whiskey, we have a nice layer of powdery snow and I’ve been going out to play bikes every freak’n day! Here’s […]
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 […]
Fatter by the Lake January 6th, 2019 – Zion Illinois How often do you get to be the poster gnome for a fat-bike event? No not the gnome in the left-hand corner the rider way out there on that sandbar might just be your weird uncle gomez. This is a group ride run by our […]
A couple of weeks ago we launched a little foto gordo contest and we’re here to thank everyone that entered and announce the winner! David Lieble sent us this shot taken at the 2018 Polar Roll up in Marquette. Everyone that entered the contest is getting a sticker pack sent out to them and David wins […]
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 […]
This week’s video comes to us from the talented specialists at Superior Social Mgmt. The clip really captures a truly great day of racing. The video combines scenes and interviews from the USA Cycling Fat-Bike National Championships at the Cannonsburg Ski Area just outside of Grand Rapids Michigan. Management and Distribution: Austen Reno www.superiorsocialmgmt.com contact@superiorsocialmgmt.com Video […]
I spent the weekend over in Michigan at the USA Cycling Fat Bike National Championships at the Cannonsburg Ski Hill near Grand Rapids. The race was run by our long-time amigo and all-around cool cat, Nate Phelps with the help of the Westen Michigan Sports Commision. The Cannonsburg Venue was quite a nice upgrade from last […]
The Triple F Fourteen, two-thousand eighteen is happening on February seventeen. Just click the flyer to be whisked directly to the grimba.org webpage. You can tell by the look in the eye of the lumberjack in the flyer that this is going to be a fun event! Check Out the Fat-Bike Event Calendar We’ve been […]
This week’s WW really ties the whole room together, man…..if you’re into what we have coming up later this week. Our longtime Bike Black Ribbon Test Pilot and the C0-Host of the Fat Camp Podcast, Ken Blakey-Shell, is also a member of the crew at the Big M Groomed Fat-Bike Trails, where another of our Michigan […]
A couple decades back, my friend Cale and I started a bike gang called the Bike Black Ribbon Society and over the years BBR established chapters all over the US. When we started to need help with testing bikes for fat-bike dot com, we established the BBR Test Pilots from BBR Chapters and their known […]
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 […]
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 […]
The dog days of summer brings the return of Fat-Tribe Thursday. This is where we like to show off some of the photos sent to us by our readers. We’ve been getting so many great photos in from out in the field that we thought we should go ‘old school’ and share a few. Let’s […]
Today Sherman, we set the way-back machine to: March 17th of Two Thousand and Twelve – Destination: Gaylord Michigan! Yes – St Fattys Day returns to the fat-bike event radar screen to punctuate the end of the winter (that wasn’t) of sixteen/seventeen. Coming Next Week – It’s Spring!
Congratulations to all of the new Fat-Bike National Champions! Both the men’s and women’s Pro/Elite Champions, Amy Stuart and Cole House will be guests on Fat-Bike Radio and….you can check out all of the results and all of the new National Champions here – https://www.usacycling.org/results/index.php?year=2017&id=3
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. […]
A couple of years ago, we predicted that kids fat-bikes might reach Stingray or PK Ripper status for the current generation of grommets. I don’t keep my finger on the pulse of what’s cool for grade schoolers, but if I’m reading the tea leaves of the cycling interwebz correctly, there’s a 32% chance that we did’t […]
