It's another late November/December here on the blog. You know what that means? Yep! Another round of my bikes I used in 2024. This round-up will not include some of the bikes I did not use this year much, or at all. I focus only on the bikes that played a big role in my riding during this year. As always, any changes or future plans for any bike I feature will also be detailed. I hope that you enjoy this year's round-up.
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| The Blackborow DS right after I built it up in 2014 |
Special Ten Year Review:
Today marks the day that ten years ago I rode the first time on the Blackborow DS fat bike I have. It was right after I was able to pay off the shop where I purchased it from on my way home from work that day.
This bike isn't used a whole lot these days, mostly due to climate issues which render our Winters here as very dry, warmer than they should be, and with little snow. There are excpetions, of course, but if last year is any indication, we only had one major snow event and very little time to actually enjoy the snow we did get.
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| Thanksgiving Day morning, 2014 |
But we have had some pretty good years, mostly early on in the decade since I purchased this bike, and I am happy I got the thing. The idea, at least initially, was to get this bike as a solution for Winter commutes on city streets covered in snow and whatever chemical concoction the City decides to spray on the streets for ice melting. Whatever the stuff is, it eats drive train parts up, and I was tired of the sacrifice to the whims of Winter.
The Blackborow DS has a "dinglespeed" drive train, which is a parallel single speed set up which has cogs that can use the same length chain but offer two distinct ratios. There is a "cruising" speed and a "crawling" speed. That's it. Oh! And you have to manually change the gears by dropping the rear wheel, moving the chain by hand, and reinstalling the rear wheel. Kind of a pain, but once you get the hang of it, it goes smoothly enough.
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| From the very first ride in 2014 |
The other reason I wanted this bike was because, at the time I bought it, the Blackborow had the widest rims and tires you could get. This meant that it had the best possible flotation, and that is what I found lacking in my Mukluks.
I was pleased with how things went when I got the bike. It handled very well. The tires did indeed float and I was able to cut trail in snow as deep as 8". Slightly packed trail was all I needed to make a go of things. So, for the ungroomed trails I was used to, this bike was the cat's pajamas.
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| I experimented with a front suspension fork for one Summer |
The Blackborow DS was tried with a front suspension fork, and while that was fun, it was kind of a needless device because it was going to just be dead weight for much of the sort of riding I would end up doing with this bike. That was due to our area being mostly flat, often muddy, and sandy in Summer. Winter was snowy, sometimes, and so a front suspension fork wasn't ideal.
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| Circumnavigating small lakes is fun on the Blackborow DS. Image by Jacob Stevenson. |
While trying to find places to ride where a bike like this is an advantage is sometimes tough to do, the Blackborow DS does come in handy at times. I really enjoy circumnavigating lakes and ponds around here with it. However; the bottom line is snow for this bike, and that is where the whole design of the Blackborow DS comes alive, at least for me it does.
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| Post-holed and bumpy trail is no match for the Blackborow DS. |
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| Cold streets and alleys are fun when it is snowy. A January pose over the Cedar River here. |
The bike has had a few changes, but very few. There was the dalliance with suspension, but most of the changes have been with the handle bar. I ran the stock Salsa bar for a while, sometimes with a pair of bar ends. Then I got a Jones Carbon H Bar. That's been on the bike ever since.
Somewhere along the way I came upon a Thomson aluminum post and swapped that out for the stock one, and the saddle was changed to a Silverado. But that is all that I have done on this bike. Even the original drive train is still intact!
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| Tracks I laid in about 8" of snow in Exchange Park in Waterloo, Iowa with the Blackborow DS |
The Blackborow DS was awesome, but with the little bit that I rode it, I was starting to feel like I did not need it. Then I got the Ti Muk 2 which was an even better match for Waterloo's messy streets with its 14 speed Rohloff internal geared hub. I often only really needed 4" tires with the way things have been with our weather. So, in 2021, I was actively trying to sell the bike.
I had a couple of suitors and I came -this- close to selling it, but the potential buyer backed out at the last minute, leaving me with the bike. Then I ended up riding it that Winter and regretted trying to sell it. So, I took it off the market and well.....
This bike is really good at what it was designed to do. But what it was designed to do is something I don't come across often enough to even wear out the drive train. So, it sits a lot of the time until Winter comes and it makes a ton of sense for what? Two weeks? Maybe, if we are lucky, that's the sort of Winter we get. Now, that all may change this Winter, but I am not holding my breath.
And if I needed a bike with lots of flotation? Well, there are bikes I could get now that have more than I'd ever need, but why bother when I've got all I need? It is a conundrum and so the Blackborow DS sits most of the year until those days when it snows a lot and trails get groomed. Then the bike makes a ton of sense and I have a blast on it. It does the thing and it does it well. I really don't need to look anywhere else.
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