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Showing posts from February, 2013

Find a Door

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My fat bike rides as of late have been slow and frustrating. For awhile we didn't have much snow at all. Then we had some rain and ice, followed by some good snow. But with the ice underneath the new snow was slippery making for one really big wipe out and several rides where my big fat tires just slipped around. My last two rides have gone kind of like this: push bike through snow, get on, pedal, slip around, tip over, get up, push, get on, pedal, slip around, maybe not tip over this time, pedal, tip, get on, pedal, slip, pedal, tip...and so on. I was getting kind of scared of getting hurt and really, really frustrated because I wasn't having much fun with my fat bike. On top of that, I'd gotten to the point where I just figured I'm a bad rider. But I was also thinking that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't terrible and I was dealing with some less than ideal snow conditions. So I figured I'd better talk to Ben, my local bike shop owner guy from Milltown Cycles

Slow ride

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We have about six inches of fresh snow on the ground at last! Trouble is, it's very slippery to ride in. I got out yesterday with the intent of riding through the new fluffy stuff and quickly realized that wasn't going to work well so I got out on the road instead and rode in tire tracks. Today I decided to get out on my snowshoes and create a fat bike track in my back yard. I tromped around the yard a few times to pack things down a bit then grabbed Bear and tried out my new track. Uh, it didn't work very well. I spent a lot of time jumping off my bike and pushing my way around the back yard. What biking I managed to do was slow biking to say the least. I worked my way around my back yard track and checked Map My Ride on my iPhone to see how far I'd gone. What? Only .19 miles? Geez. I kept at it until I logged a half mile. That half mile was probably the toughest half mile I've ever spent on a bike. I'm assuming my slow speed and difficulty getting arou