Lunch time 1/2-Fat bike ride

There's finally a bit of snow here. A quick 5-miler on the half-fat bike shows more promise than I'd expected, frankly.

The front wheel sort of plows through everything and the bike's whacked slacked (then uber-slacked by the giant fork), forces me to sit down. Seriously. When I get off my butt to stand the weird geometry is like an invisible bully just shoving me back down. Luckily, the bike is geared for super fast, low-gear spinning.

Yes. I'm actually riding a bike here. Crazy, right?

I've got the paddle WTB tread on the back under all my weight. As a result, I sort of "plane" in that boat way of planing, not bike way, over the snow.

This might just work. The real test comes when this nice, cold, powdery snow melts a bit, then refreezes into deadly frozen slush ruts.

Snow-Fat bike v2

So the cheap fat-bike thing didn't really work out.

But Glen is always thinking... and he pondered this hack.

And I'll be a monkey's uncle. It's not as stupid as it looks. And it looks pretty stupid.

Seatpost shim. The weird-o frame takes a 29.4mm post.

Of course, I've not ridden it in the snow yet. But it's pretty easy riding: with the crazy-slack angles (further amplified by pushing the front of the bike a few inches skyward), and the tall bars.

It puts you right over the rear wheel and removes weight over the front wheel. So maybe. Just maybe, it will float, while the rear wheel does all the work. And if I can find a cheap (free) fatter tire for the back, I can go to about 2.5 there.

The weirdo frame also took a (surprise!) Italian-threaded bb. The only one Glen had laying around was a sweet titanium one. Nice!

And the biggest bonus here? And Joe2 called this as soon as Glen popped it out of the stand -- the bike is a wheelie machine. Like: just pedal and you can lift the front wheel.

More to come on this I'm sure.

The other fat tire will be homemade-studded by people that hang out in Glen's garage. I need to get the hardware for that. You should go hang out at Glen's garage sometime!

Spider AT in the snow

I took my first snow ride on the Sun bike.

It's looking more and more like I picked a real boner here.

The bottom line, hard-to-fix failure of this bike is it's aluminum-ness. If it were steel, then the stupid 2-speed gearing, with 120 OLD spacing wouldn't matter for a second. Nor would the fact that it doesn't have canti-posts.

But you just can't run around spreading the rear forks 15mm on an aluminum bike.

And that geometry, where you're forced to set the bars way up there, sure makes standing and grinding difficult. And if you could stand and grind comfortably, it would be nice if the hub didn't make scary sounds when you did.

Click for big and dig those spider treads. Bad ass.

But in the end, I think the thing that is so hard about this bike is the damn tread. And I'm not talking about the Spiders the rubber leaves behind, cause that's about the coolest thing going here -- no, I'm talking Q: I'm talking about how stinking far this thing spreads out your feet. Talk about wide stance. It really gets to me after a couple miles. More than I thought it would.

It's not like I didn't know any of this when I bought it. But it was cheap! And I'm a (cheap) optimist! I'm going to hang on to it for a while longer. I'll try it on a couple commutes, but I'm not hopeful. Actually, if I commute on this sucker, I'll be dreading the climb home all day... but I feel like I must commute on it to give it a final fair shake before it goes away.

In other news. Bill, our buddy with a printing press in his basement, has found himself imposed upon once again. (Recall the MC cards). Dig those coasters. Coming soon at only the raddest boozers in town.

Ouch. Bar tape is messed up.
Note Rory-Style taping around lever. Looks good and saves time.

Finally, here's the worse, lasting damage from when I was Eberlized. Note the deep gouges in my bad-arse Campy carbon. Stuff is scratched up, but it works fine. And if it didn't, I'd still be ok because all that shit's serviceable. Bam!