Last weekend I decided to find out for myself what the craze is all about around winter ridding. I quickly learned the large tires are the key advantage in snow because they spread out the load so that the rider does not sink into the snow. The increased width also adds traction with the ability to stay on top of softer surfaces. It really opens up terrain to ride where it would impossible with a normal bike.
The bikes have a very nice feel. With the extra padding and the smoother surface of snow on the ground I hardly noticed the lack of shocks.
We have not received a lot of snow but we did have a few new inches of soft stuff on top of a good firm base. The bikes are geared low so it is easy to grind up the hills without too much slippage. Low gears surely help when out in really deep powder but we were literally on a ride in the park. The experience reminded me of ridding on sand because of the slippage but I know my old mountain bike would have sunk in much of the snow that we crossed.
This style of bike is faster way to cover a lot of ground than cross country skiing well, at my ski pace anyway!
The single track ridding is sloppier but less technical than dirt mountain biking. Sloppy because my rear tire would slide back into the track if it got up on the edge but less technical because everything was more rounded out with a layer of snow. Part of the fun is accessing area that we can’t in the summer. Much of the area that we were in is a bog so no bikes in the summer. Another nice aspect of riding in the winter is not having to worry about rolling up on a bear a common occurrence on those trails we rode. Plus no bugs bothering us!
It was fun to cross lakes the tires doing their job floating me on the snow. These bikes bring freedom to access the wide open areas of Alaska that are inaccessible with little skinny mountain bike tires.
We rented a our fat tire bikes from Arctic Cycle in Anchorage. They are friendly and knowledgeable folks who want to share their enjoyment from these bikes with the broader community. Billy Koitzsch and his wife Erica run the store from their house and take great care of the bikes. They even let me ride Billy’s old racing bike. Billy just finished the Alaska Ultra Sport a grueling 1000 mile human powered race that follows the Iditarod trail from Anchorage to Nome through some treacherous terrain. Some Race pictures.
My wife and I have been drooling over these fat tire bikes as they have grown in popularity around town. We did our test on a leisurely Alaskan spring like Saturday… nothing like the storms that Billy and others were facing that same day out on the trail racing a storm into Nome.
I have heard that people use these bikes to get around in large tidal areas like Cook Inlet where there is sand that is not traversable by normal bikes. Light enough that they can get over the sand were four wheelers will sink in and it is easy to toss the bike into a boat or raft when you have to get across the water.
The fat tire bikes make for a fun new way to get out in Alaska. Now I know why there are so many around lately.