3. Fat Bikes are Fun

The snow is falling, and our thoughts turn towards dusting off our fat bikes! Kristin and Steve roll back to the early days of the Shop when the introduction of fat bikes and our then-partnership marked an important turning point. During our conversation we talk about our bikes – a Surly Wednesday and Surly Ice Cream Truck – as well as share information about bikes, components, tubeless tires and riding fat. 

We also share listener comments and questions related to indoor riding, as well as the first in a segment we are calling "Doom or Boon - Spotted while scrolling."

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:04

This is Kristen.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

And this is Steve.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

And you are listening to Cycling Together with Kristen and Steve. And this is episode three.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Welcome to episode three.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Episode three. We're making progress. We're also at our for those who are interested in the behind the scenes and are watching on the YouTube, you'll notice we've changed locations again.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Again. Yeah. We can't, we it might change locations again for episode four, but we'll see. We're we're working on it.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

We're trying to find a place that we don't have to set up fresh every time. We can just come up, kind of like our fitness room.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

We want a podcast room that we can just come up here, sit down, record, be done. Correct. So I'm cautiously optimistic about this one. Hey, what are we talking about today?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Well, we discussed it last week. What should we talk about? And we are in the middle or coming to the middle of January. So I think the topic came to be fat bikes.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

And it snowed.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

And it snowed, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Here in New England, which I will admit I looked at and I said, I didn't think that was supposed to happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

No, we have a couple, we got a couple inches. It it's looks very nice outside. It coated the ground. Tomorrow's gonna be 42, so it's all gonna go away. But um yeah, I mean, today was actually a brilliant day to go fat biking, and we did not. We rode inside.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

We did ride inside, and we also did a gazillion other things. Unfortunately, it's where life hits cycling, right? We had we had to decommission Christmas, we had to our dog peed on our daughter's bed, we had to deal with all that. So unfortunately, sometimes biking does not come first. We're gonna talk about fat bikes. Let's start with the basics. What is a fat bike? What the heck is a fat bike?

SPEAKER_01 1:47

You know, it we're talking, we're talking about a topic that has definitely gone out of fashion in a way. Um, but it's uh I suppose if you still live above the, I don't know, 40-second parallel or something like that, which you know, northeast.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Where's my map?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Midwest, upper Midwest, Dakotas, that kind of thing. You know, fat bikes are still a great thing. And and they do a work on the beach. But I mean, so so the history really kind of comes down to a fat bike, is it is a mountain bike with really big tires.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

There you go. That that was the question. That was the answer I was looking for. That was the long way to get to that answer. You took the long route to that one.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

I I did, and and it's a mountain bike. It's a mountain bike, but it started, you know, probably it started a long time ago in Alaska where guys were welding rims together and basically double side-by-side tires.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Oh, is that how they started making it? Yeah, and so what would you say is like the minimum? And we're gonna get into equipment and stuff, but like when somebody says fat bike, how big does the wheel have to be for you to say that's not just a mountain bike?

SPEAKER_01 2:57

What right now I would say the minimum that was be considered a fat bike is a three-point inch wide tire. Okay. Yeah, I I consider it a four-inch tire, but three point inch is a lot of times what race organizers. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

So there's your definition and then there's other people's definitions. But for you, yep. It's like a okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

And it and it's you know what? And this is the 2025 is the basically the 20th anniversary of the first production fat bike.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Who made that?

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Uh Surly made that. Oh yeah, the Surly Pugsley was the first production uh mountain bike.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

So much. Can we just talk about I like the name Surly because it's an attitude? Um, I love names like that, right? That are that have double meanings, right? Yep. Trek means to trek, to travel, to right? Like I love, but then I just love all their other names, right? The ice cream truck, the parksley, the Wednesday, the name them. They have a bunch of other they're all weird and I like them. Right. They'll have attitude. Yep. So okay, so that's why so that's why Surly really still is a big name in Fat Bikes. Yeah, absolutely. Because they started the first.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

And their first one was, I think, a 3.8 inch tire.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

So our history with fat bikes goes back. Shop opened 10 years ago. Yep. Nice job.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

11 years ago almost.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Eleven years ago, that's right. Um, because we just celebrated 10 years. Um, and about nine years ago, fat bikes really started to hit big around us. And and I'm gonna take, I'm gonna say that we were one of the first local shops to dive deep into fat bikes. Yep. And we did that with a brand called Framed.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Framed.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Right. And can I also say that was like you open a shop and after about a year you go, I wonder if this is working. I feel like the framed that us bringing fat bikes in through framed, um, I'm gonna say that was the first time I thought this could work, this bike shop thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Yeah, I mean it it was so a fat bike is definitely the ultimate n plus one bike. It is the it is the you own all the bikes, and uh what else, what uh what's the next bike I can buy?

SPEAKER_00 5:21

For those who don't know what he means, and I actually said this the other day to someone at the shop, n it's a formula which is n is the number of bikes you own plus one equals the number of bikes you should own. Right. And I said that to a couple. It was the the the girlfriend or the wife's first new bike day. Her her significant other was getting a bike, and she said, This is my first new bike day, and I'm a math teacher, so I also got a new formula.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

And it was right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Spectacular. So yeah, so the fat bike feels, I mean, I'm sure for some people it's their primary mountain bike. For for a lot of the people, for us, for some, yeah, it's like our it's our luxury bike, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Yep, it is. And and and so all of my customers and all the people I knew, nobody had one. Yes. So now, and and this, you know, if these people get it, well, their friends have to get it, and their friends have to get it. And so it's just completely snowballed that year.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

And framed let us let you like customize them, right? If I remember correctly, we had just stacks of like wheels and different rims in different colors, frames in different colors, just just stacked.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

They're just yeah, I mean it framed, they offered a really attractive price point for a fat bike.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

And everything was customizable. So you would choose your your model, your color, you would choose even color of the rims, which group set you wanted, one by or two by. I mean, it was highly customizable. At the same time, it meant a lot of work for me because I had to to sort of go through the process of of what with each customer of what they should get, what was best for them. And then when everything came in, it was bits and parts, frames and wheels were all separate, and then the group set was in a box, and and it was a it was a lot of work for each bike.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

For uh yes, and for those who are not familiar with the shop, the shop is 850 square feet, it's a tiny little house. Um, granted, there wasn't much in it because you'd only been out a year, and and I will say it was a lot of work, but it really I call them the bikes that saved Steve the Bike Eye.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Well, well, we we should put up on the on the screen for the video. I do have a picture, I think, of myself buried in in the boxes. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

And then I remember us, you know, we would go to rides and I would look and I would I would think 50% of these bikes came from Steve the Bike Guy.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Oh, more than that. More than that.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

But it was really, it really was I I a really good indication indicator of how the industry was expanding out of its traditional season. Um, I joked because you were like, oh, well, I'll open a bike shop and it'll be great because in the winter um I can get projects done around the house. Right, right. And then Fatbike got introduced.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

So I would say for about three years, January and February, maybe December, January, February, were my busiest months, my best months out of the entire year.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Because of Fatbike.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Because of Fatbike.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Fat bikes did a lot of very good things for the shop.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

They really did.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

For which we were really grateful. Unfortunately, framed then went direct to consumer.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Um, which was fine because we could still have not still, we could offer surleys. Right. Um, and it did seem to be just at the just as the interest was tailing off. Oh, it totally was.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Like the it it just I the interest tailing off was is probably it it plummeted. It it just everybody who wanted one had one and it just fell off a cliff. And and that's kind of when, yeah, then I think it wasn't it wasn't to frames uh benefit anymore without that right the volume they were doing from the shops.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

So why are we talking about fat bikes today?

unknown 9:19

No.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

And then we did, I think my favorite thing. Um, in the middle of all this, we were gonna go for a winter vacation, and we looked at how much it was gonna cost us to do a ski vacation.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Right. Um, and we realized that we could buy well, you and I already had fat bikes. Right. We could buy the kids fat bikes and basically go for a fat bike vacation.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Right? Which is what we did.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Which is what we did for way less than a ski vacation.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

And ironically, we went to where did we go? We went to Lake Placid.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

We went to Lake, yeah, Lake Placid for the first half and then J Peak for the second half.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

And and the cross-country trails were starting to open for fat biking. They were starting to realize that they could get some other people on the trails.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Right. They were grooming the cross-country trails for fat bikes. Yep. Now, Lake Placid, J Peak they did. They had a cross-country ski center and they were grooming for fat bikes. Um, Lake Placid was not, they they didn't really have a cross-country ski center downtown, or say. But um, but all of the local little trail systems at the time were well packed down from walkers. And so um, now we hit the one of the coldest polar, you know, vortexes of of the uh the winter that year. And I gosh, we have a picture of us walking down to breakfast in Lake Placid, and we stayed right downtown. Yeah, and I want to say it was negative 24.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

I think it was. Yeah, I have a picture actually. Remember, they used to have the the filters where it would put the temperature. Yeah, we have one of those. I definitely have one of those. Um, and I also have a great picture of these two guys. Um, we you we had the fat bikes on the bike of the back of the car, and these two guys were like, what are those? Right. So I have a picture of you, but it was also so it was subarctic, and then we went to J Peak. J Peak?

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah, mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Worst ski conditions in like a decade. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

So which is J Peak is usually like the snow capital of Vermont. They get the most snow, and they and they they barely had any snow on the mountain. But they had it on the cross-country trails, they did have it on the cross country trails, which was actually but the conditions were icy and so forth in a way that it made for bad cross-country skiing.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Right, so they didn't charge us.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

But the but the fat biking was quite good.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Except you, except you remember when Andres hit an intersection and like he just kind of rolled into it. And what we didn't realize is that under outer, it was just and he just went, he was like a cartoon character. Like he wasn't riding, he was standing, so now he didn't hurt himself.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Four studded tires for fat bikes were really a thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Yeah, and I'm not sure you would have gotten studded tires for a 10-year-old. Right. That's true. You know, maybe you would have, but um, no, it was great. It was a great our little fat bike vacation. The kids actually still talk about that vacation, they loved it. Yeah, um, so they really were so that's why we want to talk about them because even though they aren't as popular as they used to be, they're still a valid ride option. Yeah, yeah, and we think they're great. Yeah, we really enjoy them.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

It's one of those cases when, and I also tell people this a lot of times, um, customers, basically you get one and they'll and if you only ride it three or four times a winter, that's okay. Like get a fat bike and then hold on to it for 10, 15, 20 years. Just it is that because because when you go out on a fat bike in the right conditions, the it's just magical. It's just magical in the wintertime.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

And let's consider you said it at the beginning. They can be used in it. We've brought them down to Duxbury in the summer.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Yes, they can be, and then you can be used on the weed on the sand. Yep. I've had customers get them for their you know, their houses on the and you have said that to me.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

I have so let's talk about what we have so we can level set. Sure. So I have a surly Wednesday in um sweatpant gray, which you custom built with me with these beautiful red accents. And I did say to you a couple of years ago, because we've had a couple of bad winters, didn't even snow at all last year. Right. Where I said, Yeah, you could probably you could probably sell it. And you were like, why? Why bother? Right. You know, why bother? I and I think it's partially there's not a big demand for them, and also when it's good, it's good. We have the room for them.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Um, and what do you ride, my friend?

SPEAKER_01 14:05

I ride a surly ice cream truck. Biggest difference between our two surleys is that mine will take a slightly bigger tire than yours. Okay. Um, but other than that, they're very similar bikes. And his oh, and they have a different axle spacing, actually, as well. Okay. It kind of comes with that.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

His is also pink. It's beautiful, yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Mine is mine. Beautiful prickly pear pink. Prickly pear pink as we can.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

We will post pictures of both of them. Like, where do you want to start this conversation?

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Uh so the so you know, it it a lot in the 2015, 2016, 2017, you know, to maybe 2018, because fat bike bikes were so popular, a lot of the big brands made them. And so you could find um, you could find all the big brands, fat bikes, um, Trek specialized, giant, Scott, they uh you know, they all had fat bikes. Um, and then there were a bunch of sort of fat bike companies out there, like frame. Um, but well, frame does a lot of stuff, but they were big in fat bikes. Uh Borealis, um, there was a company called Cooker, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Um, um Charge Charge, right? Charge the Charge Cooker, which I know because we have a used one for consignment available on the site if anyone's looking for one in a medium.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Um so but then but then the demand plummeted, right? And so a lot of the big brands just dropped it from their line. It just wasn't worth it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

One of the questions with with fat bikes is if it's an N plus one bike, how much do you spend on a bike that you use three or four times a year?

SPEAKER_01 15:46

So, so with the and this is why I do like Surly in a lot of ways, and this comes down to how you buy your bikes and and your preferences and so forth. But with Surly, because you can buy the frames by themselves, or you can buy one set built model of their of their of their um fat bikes. Okay. Okay, I am not a particular fan of the parts that they put on those pre-built bikes, but they are they are good value in a in in many ways, okay? Um, but this is where so again, because a lot of people, this is a very definite extra bike they're getting, they might have some spare parts around from old mountain bikes and so forth. So if they were to get a frame, you could use some extra parts, but you can you can basically customize it to how you want it with the saddle you want and the bar width you want and the tire selection you want, which is a big, big factor in fat bikes. Right. Um, I mean, we talked earlier about the sort of the beginning size of fat bike tires, but like to me, um when you get a fat bike, you get a fat bike. Um and and we can kind of I should we get into like sort of that that technicality of the tires? I mean, so fat bikes will come in 26 inch, the old 26-inch wheel size.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Okay, all right, and then flip that's we're talking this the diameter, the diameter, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

And so that's what all old older mountain bikes used to be, and now it's really just for kids' bikes, but but then they would have like our tires are 4.6 inch. And when you take the overall circumference now of that wheel, it's bigger than a 29 by 2.3, 2.4 tire. So it's a very, very big round wheel with a 26 inch. But then fat bikes started to come out with 27 and a half. Um, 27.5 is a is a popular size on regular mountain bikes. And this is just again the the diameter of the wheel. Yep. Um but the but the rims are very, very wide because they're there's they're they're specially sized hubs, they're specially sized rims. You you a fat bike wheel only works on a fat bike frame.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Right. Right. Not fitting on anything else.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

But but they didn't really change a lot of the manufacturers, didn't really change their frame designs. So you have a bigger wheel, but in order to fit this into the frame, you actually had smaller tires. So now you're seeing 27.5 by like, now you get like the 3.8, 4 inch, and that's about it. Um right. And the overall, and I and I got a bunch of those in at the time in terms of, and I would find that the 26 inch with a big 4.6 or 4.8 tire would be an overall bigger size wheel than a 27.5 by four.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

I feel like that meme with the woman and all the numbers are floating in front of her face. Right?

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Yeah, like I know, so I'm throwing out all these numbers. So, so my personal preference is still is still the old, the, the, the original 26-inch fat bike wheel with one of the um the 45 North 4.6 inch tires or the Maxis makes a 4.8. Funny enough, they they're labeled slightly differently, but they really measure in in true life about the same.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

And I mean, speaking of parts, to get back to that for a second, like ours, you're gonna correct me if I'm wrong. Yes. We use mechanical shifting. We use mechanical shifting. Like our mountain bikes have electronic shifting, our fat bikes have mechanical shifting. Like we don't have necessarily the we have the parts we need on it, but it's not like I don't have well, we'll talk about that too, but like I don't have a shock.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

You don't have a shock, right? You do. Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Um, I don't have a shock because I feel like it's putting suspension on a waterbed. Like they they do ride differently, they they ride like they do an ATV.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Like if you use a fat bike, and and this is what and this is also my preference and what I do tell customers because of what uh how I feel about them. But if you're gonna use a fat bike as a mountain bike on dry ground, uh then a shock is definitely a front suspension. Fork is definitely helpful.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

On the snow, no, you don't need it. Right. You don't need it. And and and I have a Lau Fork on mine, so it's it's not a lot of suspension.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Yours is so bougie. Can we just talk about you? Have the Lau fork that you had custom painted in the prickly pear. So it is good to be the bike guy. Right. It was we all have our things, right? It's a gorgeous bike. When you it was white when you put it on it, and it was a little too barbie.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

So that was why I was like, well, you can't put that thing on it because you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

I'm a bug. Right. I mean, I could have stripped it down to the carbon, but yeah, that's it's well, we have hot tubes right nearby, and they did a gorgeous, gorgeous job of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Um, but back so so that all impacts cost, obviously, right? If the the parts you're gonna put on the the quality of those parts, right, the the whether or not it's carbon or do they still do carbon?

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Yeah, you can get a carbon fat bike. Um, I mean, in terms of material, so the surleys are steel, yes, um, and and they're quite inexpensive because of that. Yep. Um, and they're very uh versatile, they're easy to build up, they have all the mounts. Um, yeah, just a just they're surleys known for making very utilitarian and unique uh bikes. Um and then yes, carbon's still a great uh frame material for fat bikes. Um aluminum is fine, you know, that's what a lot of the big brands made their bikes out of. Okay, um, so you don't necessarily see too many of that often now, actually. No. Um and I mean titanium is a great fat bike option. Um, but you're looking at a custom some seven, um, maybe probably I don't know who else makes them still. But um and um, and then what else do we have for so we have steel, carbon, aluminum, titanium. Yeah, I mean, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Um how much does this weigh? How much is like how much does my mountain bike weigh versus how much Wednesday weighs?

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Funny enough, I I don't know what the exact weight of your fat bike is, but I believe it might be slightly under your full suspension mount bike. Yeah, and I know mine definitely is. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I mean, I you know it's a steel frame, but I have I mean, I have middle of the road Shimano mechanical parts. Um I have a we don't have we don't have dropper posts on we don't have dropper posts, but I yeah, we have we have um like well I have a carbon fiber seat post on mine, you have a a cool uh anodized aluminum red one um on yours. Um and we have some nice wheels on ours. Um but they're under 30 pounds. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

I did once get trapped under my fat bike, so it was the framed, and we were right, it's not because it was heavy, but they ride differently. They do, they they because it's a big tire, it's like trying to drive an ATV. And so we were in the woods with a bunch of guys, and I somehow flipped the bike, and I ended up getting my leg stuck between like it folded on top. So we had the wheel, and then the bike almost folded on top of my leg pinning me.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

And of course, this was in the deep snow, though, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 23:21

No, I think that this was not in the deep snow, it was just a dry because I wasn't mountain biking at the time. It was the only bike I had. I it's I call it my entry, my re-entry back to mountain biking is also thanks to the fat bike. Oh, okay. Because we had started as mountain bikers, we'd gone to cycle cross, we we were coming back. The fat we got the fat bikes, and that's so I got trapped under it. And I remember it was our friend Chris. He was with us, and I was like, get it off, get it off, get off. Nobody could figure out what was going on. Finally, somebody picked it up and flipped it over, and I was like, Oh, thank you. Um but on one hand, you can run over all the things, and on the other hand, I finally asked you for a mountain bike because I wanted to be more nimble.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

So it was really, it's it's an interesting, it is a mountain bike, so it can be your mountain bike. But for me, it actually is what brought me back to mountain biking because it got me back on the trails, got me back comfortable with the idea of going over things because you really just want to bump bum bum bump over it big tires.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

That's a that's a good point. I mean, I started mountain biking in 1990. Okay, but you know, at at that time, right, as the as we started getting the mountain uh the fat bikes, um maybe I was mainly road, and that was also sort of how we just sort of got back into the woods.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

It was between cycle cross. Remember, we start I don't know if you remember this, but we started cyclocross. I had been doing triathlon. Um, so my girlfriend and I were doing cyclocross, she was also a triathlete, and she was like, Why are you comfortable on the dirt? And I said, I used to mountain bike because that's how we had started when we met. You you had me buy a track, yep, mountain bike, and then we went to road. We'll have to do a whole episode on how we started riding. We went to road because I said, I can't going up the hill is hard enough. Do I want to go over the rocks? Right. So then we got into road riding. You've always been good at letting me dictate what we ride. So yeah, we had we had kind of abandoned mountain biking for a while until cyclocross brought us back into the woods and then fat bikes.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

I mean, uh I keep saying the shop has been a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Part of it was because we didn't have all the bikes, right? So it was sort of what our what what style of riding we were doing was ebbing and flowing at that time in terms of what we did.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Sure. And build for me. Right. Us. Yeah. I mean, that's how that started. It's true. Story for another day. Um okay, other things. We just talked about suspension. Clips or flats.

unknown 25:58

Clips or flats.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

I so most people are gonna have a flat pedal and just use a winter boot when they when they flat bike. And I like clipping in. So I do have a uh winter boot that's designed to have a cleat on the bottom and clip in.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

What about those flippy ones where it's clip on one side, flat on the other?

SPEAKER_01 26:17

No. No, no, no, because if you want to clip in, it's difficult to now you have to find the clip inside. Right? So I I I do not like those except for very specific circumstances for people.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

I've been flat. The only downside to that is sometimes I get my shoelaces stuck in my in in the um pedal or in the the thing that attaches the pedal to the bicycle. There you go. Like it remember when Sophie got had to get off her bike in a cycle cross race because her shoes became untied because she was getting them wrapped around the crank. That happens to me sometimes if you aren't careful with your with your um shoelaces. I'm losing words, apparently. Um, used market. Good idea as a place to maybe get into fat.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Well, I I think it is now because there's probably a lot of of I don't actually, I don't even know how there's a lot, but there's there's got to be a good amount of fat bikes on the market of people who have been sitting in them in their garage and they and they just want to make the space now and they're because they're not using them.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

But when you're looking for a fat bike that's used, what are some of the things maybe you should keep an eye out for if if if they won't let you bring it to your local mechanic to have it double checked, which would be ideal. But you know what I'm saying? Like Facebook Marketplace always makes me really nervous.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Yeah, and there's a lot of stuff. I mean, with any used bike, there's there's things that you need to look out for, but but if we just look at fat bike specific things, um fat bike tires can be good, especially good ones, can be very expensive. Um, so I would just make sure that the tires are still in good shape. That is both the tread and the sidewalls, um, because the sidewalls um can get worn down. Um, the other thing is that I would avoid specialized fat bikes, and the reason is because um, like a lot of things they do, they did their own axle um size. And because of this, if you were to ever have an issue and need another wheel or whatnot, you're not gonna find it anymore. It's just not made.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Okay. Oh, no, I mean that's really good.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

So, like they did a 135 spacing front in some cases. You just can't get that anymore. Um just just yeah, so some weird stuff there. Um, they have their I'm not sure about the fat bikes, but they have their own headset bearing size. So I would just I would stay away from those just because parts aren't made anymore for them.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Okay. That reminds me of once I wanted to ask you about, we actually talked about this in our pre-rides, but since this is a new show and we're in the podcast, um, I was on a Facebook group and someone was complaining about their fat bike tire weeping, leaking uh because it was a tubeless setup. Yep. And um why why are some people having difficulties getting their tires to hold on to the I mean this thing was like it was pouring out the sides of it, it wasn't weeping through, it was it was coming out of the rim.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Right. So so all right, so tubeless is very, very popular now. If you have a mountain bike, you're most likely tubeless. Okay. Um, if you have any any any bike that goes off-road, cyclocross or gravel, you probably are tubeless. Um, so it's super popular now. The the tubeless technology has evolved significantly and is better. Um, but during the Fat by Craze in 2015, 2016, and so forth, it was not. And so you had a lot of rims that were not made to be tubeless. You had tires that were not made to be tubeless, and there were all sorts of, they're still out there now in the market. There's there were all sorts of systems out there to basically create the seal between the tire and the rim on a fat bike to make it tubeless. Right. And and these were just they were problematic. Um the the frame fat bike, so those those framed wheels would not go tubeless. Um, they were slightly undersized, if you will. Um, so that the tires had to slightly, the beat of the tire had to slightly compress down in order to meet the rim. Okay, it worked fine with tubes, but was never ever gonna be tubeless.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

And I think that's what's important is recognizing that not all wheels are meant, not all rims are designed to accept tubeless, not all tires are designed to be tube, like you can't just assume mash these things together and they're gonna work.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

Nowadays, so like I I have head rims on my fat bike, you have surly rims on yours. I mean, all the surly fat bike rims are tubeless ready. The the head ones are are are tubeless. Uh the head ones are are are so tubeless that it's actually harder to get the tire off the rim than it is to get it on. Uh the the the the bang and the snap that those tires make when you inflate them as they as they lock into the into the rim is you're not getting that off. No, it's a little it's actually a little it's a little frightening. It can scare people.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

And then and then the tubeless fluid can also make the big difference. And of course, you recommend orange seal all the time.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

All the time. Uh and they do make a what's called a sub-zero. Um, so orange seal has three different versions and one sub-zero, and so that it stays liquid in extremely cold conditions. The regular uh orange seal does go down quite low, I think five degrees or above above zero, but um Fahrenheit. But um, but yeah, but sub-zero goes down to negative 20 or something.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Anything else you'd like to share on fat bikes with glass?

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Uh let's see. Oh, studded tires. We should talk about studded tires. So um they do stud. So they make tires, they make the fat bike tires with uh little steel um we'll call we'll call them little steel screws, basically. Um, and they can have 250 of these little screws, you know, all around them. Um, these are great. You do not need this in snow, but they are great when you have conditions where you, especially like in our current winter situation here in Massachusetts, where we'll have some rain, then it'll freeze, and then we might get some snow on top. And if you have frozen puddles out there in the woods and then underneath a little layer of snow, which actually are even slipperier, um, yeah, like so. I I have a bunch of customers getting that because a studded tires, as expensive as they are, are cheaper than hip replacement. So and if you if you hit ice like that, uh you can just go you can go down in an instant before you even know what happened. Well, and then let's also talk a little bit about like ideal conditions with a with a nice big tire, like a 4.6 or 4.8 tire, you can just plow your own track through the woods in to up to about and in this four or five inches of snow. And then it can when you get to that that range you're talking about now it comes down to how the moisture content in the snow and so forth. Um, like today with a couple inches, you could have just gone anywhere you wanted, right? Did not matter what the if it was if it was fluffy snow or or wet snow or whatever. Right. Um, once you start to get deeper than that, then you need a place where it's been packed down. Yeah. So an area which pop which is actually popular with with walkers will do. So I we know a couple of conservation areas where riding's allowed, and the people go in there after a snowstorm and they'll walk their dogs, and you get a you know, you get a hundred people in there, and suddenly it's packed down enough that the tires will ride on top. Yep. Um, and then in some places, some especially um mountain bike areas, they will go out, the local trail organization will go out and groom the trails. And when you hear they're grooming the trails for fat biking, it means they're basically compacting down about a two-foot-wide swath, ribbon through the through the snow, um, with a little machine called a snow dog. And if when you get those kind of, if you can find a place that grooms that track, that talk about some of the best fun you'll ever have.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Okay, but also let's talk about sometimes it can be so deep on the sides. Yes, and packed beautifully in the middle, and then you fall. Yep, and you can't get back on the bike easily because you are deeper.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Yeah, we had winters where there would be two feet of snow of of powder on the sides.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

So you're stuck, you're you've fallen off. Your bike is still on the packed area, and it is like up here. Yeah. And you have to somehow get yourself out. And you also don't want to post hole things, right? You you're gonna try not to destroy it yourself, right? Um, but yeah, no, spectacular. And for us, I am hoping this year. So what we have done traditionally um has been our fat bike winter ruckus ride. Yeah. Um, we did that for a couple of years during the height of our fat biking. We had spectacular snow. Um, and then we had a couple of years where every time we scheduled it, it would rain. Right. So now what we do is we just wait. And if we think the snow is gonna stick around for long enough, then we will basically say we ride on Saturday. Right. Right. But that's really the only way I feel like for us that we can make sure we're not gonna destroy it.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yeah, and this kind of winter climate we're in where we don't get much snow anymore.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Climate change is great. All right. Well, I think that's it for fat bikes. But of course, if you have any questions or you want um more advice on fat bikes, feel free to send us an email, which brings me to our next segment, which we're gonna do the comments first and then we'll do the which is we got a comment about our last show about the trainers from our friend who said, Your podcast is great and helped me decide to use Zwift. I hate indoor stationary machines, but wanted to improve my fitness strength for leading rides this spring summer. Yay. Um, which she then started to ask about trainers. And I'll admit that so I had two questions. Number one was how much should a trainer cost? What's the range? Right. And then too much to my surprise when you said, Well, if we're gonna if she's gonna get a trainer where the wheel is off in the back, she also needs a cassette. And I was like, Why does she need a cassette? And then you said, because she doesn't want to take it off of her wheel.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

It didn't even occur to me that you need it to like right, and it has to match what you currently have on your bike seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve speed. Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

So so how much how much is somebody looking at ballpark if they're looking for a quality wheel-off trainer and a cassette.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

If you were, if you if you really think this is gonna be something you're going to do, and again, this a trainer is something you're gonna keep for years and years and years and years, even if you're only gonna use it in the winter, the like you want to get something um decent. It used to be a wheel and wheel-off trainers are the the better choice. Okay. Um, and it used to be you had to spend a thousand plus to get one. Okay, and now um on sale, uh sometimes as low as 400, but 500 is kind of where you would be starting at.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

So five or just how much is Planet Fitness? That's I just think of it that way. I always think of it that way for me. Like I'm not getting a gym membership, right? I I made this commitment.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Yeah, it's with a lot of money, um, but it is something, yeah, that you would keep uh conceivably for a decade.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

What is our next segment?

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Doom or boom.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Seen it while scrolling.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

All right, and what do we have for Doom or I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

What do you you have something?

SPEAKER_00 38:33

I saw it online, but I also I'm cheating a little bit. I also have it physically here.

unknown 38:38

Boom!

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Oh I'm gonna call this a boon. Oh. This is um Mountain Flyer, the Mountain Bike Journal. It's an anniversary edition magazine that they sent to us, and it's available on Instagram. And um, I'll admit you you saw it and went, woo. Right.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Well, yeah, you know, it's uh you don't get um number one, it's huge, and you don't get beautiful print magazines anymore, do you?

SPEAKER_00 39:08

That's that's I wanted to give it a shout out because you really don't. I mean, they're they are a magazine I wasn't that familiar with, except um they're involved with uh Flow State, the Vermont that's how I believe that's how we got the list. Yep. Um what is the back cover? Is that their first? Oh, look at that mountain flyer, the future mountain bike. Look, it has the the oh yeah.

unknown 39:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

It was just cool. Um, I just it was very, it's very cool to see that as one who wanted to go into publishing. I thought I was gonna go into publishing. I went into marketing. Um I it is you you just don't get a big magazine like this with gorgeous photography that often. Look at that guy.

unknown 39:52

Look, look at that guy.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

He's like flying.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

He's doing a Superman upside down.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Yeah, so we will provide a link. I don't know if you can buy these. Or get these. This was like a print. This came as just a gift, but the 20th anniversary issue. Good job, Mountain Flyer. Because that is an accomplishment to be able to keep a print thing going. Right? It really is. Yeah. So that was my Doom or Doom or Moon. Alright. Anything else for this episode?

SPEAKER_01 40:21

I think that is about everything for Fabpikes.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

What do you uh would do we know what we're going to talk about next time? Oh, I put you on the spot.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

You did. I there's, you know, I always think about a lot of different topics. There is an infinite number of topics, and yet when it comes to what we're going to do next week, you're like, I don't know. What should we do? I don't I can't think of anything. Right? But then it then it comes to you.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

It does. That is it. I'm going to have you read that last paragraph.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

All right. So for the show notes, uh links, or to leave a comment or question about a future show, please visit cyclingtogether.bike. And if you like the show, please help the spread the word and leave a review.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Don't forget to tell a friend.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

And tell a friend.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

We used to say, and to tell, tell three friends. Cycling together with Kristen and Steve is a production of Steve the Bike Guy, an independent bike shop outside of Boston and Sundon Marketing, the place that I work. And thank you for cycling with us.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

Okay, see you next time. And and so it was um our dog is being ridiculous right now.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Daisy, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 41:29

She's behind the camera trying to play cameraman.

SPEAKER_00 41:32

In the nest. Okay, I feel like I should help her.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Right.