Saturday, January 21, 2012

Celebrating In Snow

I am pretty sure it was about a year ago that the Snow Dog emerged from the Guitar Ted Laboratories to terrorize the local scene. The bike had been in the works since the November before, and with all the hullabaloo involved in getting everything together for it, I wasn't sure I would even get to ride the bike in snow last year.

Making an 8" deep furrow
But an amazing bunch of friends got together and made sure I had the final pieces to the puzzle- the frame and fork- before my birthday last year, and you know what? They even bought the frame and fork for me. Yeah......pretty dang cool. 

There is no way I can ever show my gratitude or repay these kind folks fully for that selfless act. I can only show you that I remember your actions and that I am really enjoying The Snow Dog as much as I can. Like yesterday. 

The one thing I took away from last year's snowy rides was that I thought I could use just a wee bit more float. I figured at that time I was going to have to look at getting 100mm rims. These, I thought, would stretch out the 3.8" Larry enough to get that little bit more float. What I didn't know was that a bigger Larry was on the way- the Big Fat Larry 4.7"er, as a matter of fact.

Well, it was going to be cheaper to get two new tires than it was to get two new fat bike wheels made with 100mm rims, so I thought that the BFL would do what I wanted. I can now say that "yes", the BFL is that "little bit more float" that I was wanting last year.

I rode through 4"s of fluff going to work and twice as much coming home. I know the 3.8"er on Rolling Darryls would have been not nearly as rideable. That said.......I think I may be looking for some wider rims for next winter! 

Happy Birthday, Snow Dog! (And thanks to those who made it all possible)

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