the Way of the Turtle

Fat Bike Failure
Wednesday, January 25, 2017

OK, that's a bit misleading... it was my attempt to ride the bike that was a failure, not the bike itself. I figured this was a good opportunity to try to bike in a bit of unfrozen snow so I headed over to the trailhead in Slingerlands, geared up, and spent two tenths of a mile alternately trying to ride and push the bike. I think the problem is it's too darn warm, so under the snow is a layer of slushy slop, and whenever my bike tire dug down into that I found myself with no traction, which would cause me to stop and start to tip over. After about 5 minutes I decided I was wasting my time (or worse, that if I kept going I'd end up jamming a knee trying to stop from falling over) and put the bike back on the car for the drive home.

One thing this shows me is that I definitely don't want to enter any fat bike events until I have more experience riding in snow, and have a better idea of how the bike works under various conditions.

JMH