Fat Bikes Bring Promise of Year-round Cycling

By Chris Roth

Folks enjoying the beach this summer might be doing a double take — just as ice fishermen and snowmobilers will do the same come winter at the sight of bicycles in their midst.

Some over-sized rubber is turning cycling into a year-round sport.

The whizzing of fast-moving spokes and tires is music to a mountain biker’s ear. But the newest conductor of this orchestra is a fat bike.

It looks like a mountain bike except for the wide tires, which have opened up the world of off-road cycling.

“You can’t ride on a beach with a mountain bike. You can’t ride in snow,” Mark Steele, a fat bike rider and member of the Titletown Flyers cycling team, said.

Yes, he said snow. Thanks to the fat bike, cycling is a year-round sport in cold-weather climates.

Kelly Skinkis, another fat bike rider with the Titletown Flyers said, “I want to ride in the winter, and I hate riding in the basement, I hate looking at the concrete, and this is fun.”

And that is why cyclists around here love the fatties.

“Within the last two years it’s gotten huge. Trickled down from Michigan, and people saw how much you could do with these bikes. Now you need to order a year out,” Jackie Jadin, owner of Trikes to Bikes in New Franken, said.

“We have a hard time keeping them in stock, and our suppliers have a hard time keeping them in stock. It really has become the second, third, or fourth bike for cyclists, much to the chagrin of their significant others. But it is becoming a staple in the cyclists’ quiver, to keep the sport rolling year-round,” Rebecca, co-owner of The Bike Hub in De Pere, said.

“If you love biking, this is the only way to bike year-round,” Steele said.

To read the whole story, visit here: http://www.wbay.com/story/19006214/2012/07/12/fat-bikes-bring-promise-of-year-round-cycling

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