The Freaks Come Out At Night

Tonight I manged to get out and join the LBS ride that was in the neighborhood.

I have been fortunate enough to have yet another Fatback come my way.  That's 3 in 3 weeks.

This pink steed was offered to me for an extended test ride with the option to buy at a very fair price.

Gypsy Nicholas told me what I should have know already, that I ought to thin out my stable in order to add a fatbike.  If you are looking for a quality used bike give me a shout, I've got a few that I'm looking to part with.

The ride tonight was great.  A dozen fine folks came together to roll through the woods on fatbikes.  Conversations were pleasant and effortless and a few eye catching bike bits came out of the woodwork.

First was a pair of powder coated Surly Rabbit Hole/Knard wheels.   These bits were not on a Krampus, but rather on a Pugsley (NeckRomancer if I'm not mistaken). Looked like a fun set of wheels to have for a fat bike, might have to do something like this some time  if I should choose to acquire the pink Fatback.

The other thing I spotted on the ride was these wheels on a Salsa Mukluk:

 

I  didn't get a chance to chat with the owner, but I did do some serious gawking.

Good gosh, look at the size of those cutouts!

100mm rims with Bud and Lou mounted up. 

This ride was ready for business

There was a pair of spokes, parallel to each other between each set of cut outs.

I love the creative thinking and the willingness to just go ahead and do it, the wheels seemed to be working just fine this evening.

 Trails were in great shape and it was really nice to get out and cruise around in the woods with a bunch of other bike appreciating folks.

Fat Bike, Fat Fender

DIY downtube fender for a fat bike

The Pugsley Index

While a brand new Pugsley will still set you back $1650, supply and demand seems to be driving down the value in the used market. Good news for anyone hoping to get into the fatbike game for cheap.

As 0f today the Pugley Index (an indicator of market value and stability) has dropped below $1200 for the first time ever!

I also appreciate the irony that the lowest price also comes from the one seller who failed to spell Pugsley correctly in his/her ad.

With spring only a few short months away and the new Moonlander on the market one can only wonder if we won't see the PugsleyDex drop below the $1000 mark before too long.

It's a buyer's market my friends, enjoy.

Lost Coast Video

Looks like a lot time spent with wet feet, but a pretty amazing trip.



more words and pictures at:
LaceMine29

Captain Swallowtail

RoamingDials

-As a side note this is apparently blogpost #100 for me.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I'm Pugsley sitting while Allman is out of town. I snuck out twice today. Tonight I rode for an hour at -5 after the rest of the house went to bed. Once I got to trailhead it was 95% winter singletrack. Here's a bit of what it looked like:

Caution: Long Load

FAll! I love fall!

I had a bunch of stuff that friends had left at our house over the past few weeks and I decided that this afternoon it was time to return it. It was me and the little man hanging out all day, so I figured out how to hook the Burley trailer up to the Dummy and we headed out.
It was a beautiful afternoon. Lots of sunshine, and lots of color on the trees. Little dude slept hard in the trailer as we ran around.
Allman caught up with us in the middle of our ride, he was out on his Pugsley pulling a trailer with his recycling on board. At one point the tape measure came out and it turned out that his rig outstretched the Dummy/Burley set up by 9 or 10 inches.Mrs Bike wrider caught up with us just before we got home, so we turned around and rode for a while longer. We finished up by riding a few mellow trails on the way back to the house.

Surly, One Freaky Family

Like I said earlier a good bike geek buddy of mine dropped by to visit for a couple of days. It was fantastic to catch up and swap stories about the past few years.

Whilst plotting his visit we discussed grand schemes and epic rides. Possibly a big ride through the mountains of Glacier National Park, or a high plains century, or a few days of rallying the local trails.

Reality was dictated by the weather (it rained a lot) and other major life commitments and events. Regardless he parked his truck when he got here and didn't get in a motor vehicle until he left several days later. We ran errands on bikes, visited the farm supply store/fly shop and even snuck out for an evening rider goofing off along the river.

He brought out his Pugsley and traded it for my Big Dummy and we rallied around on the freak show bikes. I have to give props to the crew at Surly, they have come through with some fantastic and innovative bikes, as well as some really solid interpretations of the classic bicycle.

Big smiles were plentiful as we cruised around and goofed off on two wheels, whether they were super fat or super spread out.

Good Friends and Bike Geeks

A buddy stopped by for a visit in the middle of his cross continental road trip, fresh off a multi-month bike tour of Latin America. Good to hang out, and really nice to have another bike geek around even if my wife does regularly end up just shaking her head at us.

I was happy swap bikes and rally around on his Pugsley, while he rolled the BigDummy.

Also, recently had to run to the hardware store for some home improvement supplies including a 10ft section of downspout.

Summer Plans and Studded Tires

Looking at some local ride options for this summer. A couple of them can be ridden as loops or set up with an uphill vehicle shuttle. I am seriously pondering doing some solo rides on a few of these and using my road bike to shuttle myself back up the highway. The way this goes in my mind is that I drop my overly heavy dual suspension trail bike off at the trail head near the top of the pass then drive to the end of the trail and drop the truck off there. Then I hop on my cross bike, spin up the highway back to the trail head, unlock my mountain bike and lock up my cross bike. I enjoy a nice ride through the mountains and plenty of descending, eventually end up at the truck and all I have to do is remember to pick up my cross bike on my way back into town and I'm set. A couple of the loops I'm looking at manage to squeeze in 15-18 miles of trail with only a 4 or 5 mile cross bike shuttle required. I know I could just take one bike and ride the whole thing as a loop, but the difference between a five mile highway climb on a cross bike versus and 6inch travel mountain bike is significant in my mind.

I've set up a few rafting shuttles this way and was super pleased to be able to run some significant stretches of beautiful rivers with just one truck and no hitchhiking.

Notice the bike lashed to the back of the raft.

Sunny rides along ridge lines are just daydreams at this point in time, after a brief reprieve winter is back, and I'm not the only one excited about it. I bumped into The Local Beard today after I saw his bike parked outside of a store. He had just finished fashioning a homemade set of studded mountain bike tires based on some instructions I put together and emailed to him. He was super stoked to have them rolling and said he woke up this morning hoping that everything was covered in ice. Unfortunately not much happened overnight and the streets were pretty much bare for his commute to work. Fortunately for him it started snowing by midday and he had an inch or two of snow to roll through on his way home.

I know there are plenty of detractors of homemade studs, and I do know just how nice the Nokians are, but some of us have more time than money. With just a couple of dollars worth of sheet metal screws I cannibalized an old set of tires a few years ago and have been happily riding studded ever since. Someday when a good deal comes along I might buy some less ghetto studs, but really what I'm planning on is getting myself a Pugsley.

Hopefully sooner rather than later.

For now my home made studs are working well for me, I'll post the directions I put together sometime soon so that those of you with more time than money can also enjoy the pleasure of cruising on ice.

Ride safe.

- bike wrider