Friday News And Views

Yak Attack: 

I was asked by Mountain Bike Radio to be a guest and talk about Interbike, 27.5"ers, fat bikes and more. If you want to hear the almost hour long chat with host Ben Welnak, you can check out that right here. 

There is a rumor that I may be on Mountain Bike Radio every two weeks or so. Hmm.....stay tuned.

Krampus: Ancient language term meaning "fun"!

29+ Is Pretty Fun: 

This Surly Krampus with the enormous 3" tires on it was, in a word, a heck of a lot of fun.  The more I think about this, the more I see where it has a use for ultra-long riding and bikepacking.

As is typical with a Surly, this bike is solidly built, but due to the really long fork, big tires, and longer top tube, the ride is an order of magnitude smoother than my Karate Monkey's. So, let's say you are going to do some long bikepacking deal, maybe Tour Divide. Yeah.....this would be that bike. Of course, it'll be great for horsing around on too, but I think the touring aspects of this bike off road would be really appealing.

Finally, I was told recently that there is some misinformation floating about concerning the Krampus. It was being said that frame only Krampus' would be black. This is not true. All Krampus frame onlys will initially be the sparkly green seen in my image here. Another thing- these are insanely popular, so you know what that means.....

Mason: Another fun machine

This Could Be Fun Too: 

Another bike I was impressed by, since it pushed the fun meter pretty high, was this Diamond Back Mason 140mm travel hard tail.

It has sub-seventeen inch chain stays. Yeah...16.77", to be exact. While I am not a fan boy of short chain stays necessarily, this bike seemed pretty dialed.  The slack 66° degree head angle wasn't bad at all, and you can pop the travel adjust Fox Talas fork down to 110mm, which noticeably lowers the front, and quickens up the handling a bunch as well.

Normally I wouldn't consider such a rig as this for around here, but since the travel adjust is there, it begins to make some sense. It definitely would be a fun, "play bike" sort of rig. By the way, it also comes as a frame only.

Fat bike 3GR!

And I know This Is Fun...

Fat bike 3GR last happened in early August when it was blazing hot, dry, and crispy. This Saturday it won't be quite so hot, but it is still pretty dry out there.

If you want to ride along on your fat bike- or any ol bike- show up at Island Park at 8:30am. We'll do the Union Access fire road from Black Hawk Park, then find our regular route back to Cedar Falls.

Then on Saturday afternoon, I'll be leaving town to go ride the Moonshine Metric down in Mt. Vernon. 63 miles or so of night time gravelly goodness. I'm pretty pumped about this one, especially since I let myself down and didn't do any gravel grinding at night this year. Well.....once.  I did a "Super-moon" ride that month they said the moon was in its closest orbit to earth.

But I am going this time, and I will be stoked to ride on parts of the Moonlight Madness course I did a couple years ago in the driving rain. This time I'll get to see this area in much better weather. Well, it will be moonlit, so I will see something! Not totally dark, anyway. So, there will be 100 miles of riding or more in less than 24 hours.

That should make for some healthy appetites and good stories!

Hope that ya'all are getting out and riding too. Have a great weekend. Ride a bicycle!