Getting fat on a bike!

During the Christmas holiday, I was lucky enough to spend some time mountain bike riding in Arizona. This mountain bike trek was more interesting than usual for two reasons. Riding in the Sonoran Desert around Phoenix is an amazing experience and doing the ride on a fat bike made it even more fun.

First, I have to say if you ever get a chance to do a desert ride during winter months, do it! Novice to experienced riders will love the challenge of the rolling Sonoran single-track trails, surrounded by towering cactus, tons of wildlife and a beautiful landscape. The weather is warm, but cool enough to be comfortable riding.

What's up with these strange looking fat tired mountain bikes? I have been hearing about them for a couple of years now and only recently started to see them around our area. When the opportunity came up to ride one in the desert, I literally jumped on it.

So what's the ride like? These fat tire bikes, or fat bikes, have a unique feel to them and they are surprisingly quick, stable and comfortable to ride. The bike I used was a specialized fat bike with aluminum frame using a 26-inch by 4.6-inch tire. The very first thing I noticed was the stability of the ride as I plowed through fairly deep sand and gravel. I was concerned that the 4.6 tires would bog down heading up steep inclines, but found that the bike responded just fine when I had to stand up and press hard up hills. Heading down declines felt controlled and steering was responsive and tight. I did notice that pushing too hard on the pedals did create too much torque under certain conditions causing the rear wheel to loose traction and slide out a fair amount.

There are two schools of thoughts for tire pressure. If you're riding in sandy or gravel conditions, it is recommended to keep your pressure at 8psi. During my desert ride, I had my tires at 10psi which was too high and created a few bouncy moments where I thought I was going to land in some nasty cactus. If you go too low on your psi when riding in dry terrain, expect some self-steer when you get into thicker material, so finding the balance is key.

The other school of thought is in snow, and after talking with a few people who ride in snow, it's clear tire pressure becomes a bit trickier. Depending on the snow depth and conditions, most snow riders like the pressure a little lower then dry terrain around 5-6psi. Now this tends to be a personal preference thing and also can depend on which tires you're running, etc. For riding in snow, it seems tire pressure can make or break how you will float balanced against how much traction you need.

As for tire bounce on these bikes, it is something you need to become accustomed to and not overreact. I did notice while riding a very tight stretch of the desert single-track that when I was dropping into pronounced down then up terrain transitions, the bounce was harsher. I can say the bounce was minimal and never left me feeling out of control. In fact, the fat tires more often then not gave me a feeling of solid stability.

Since I have not ridden a fat bike in the snow, I look forward to the experience. I also think that these bikes open up a lot of missed bike time that happens due to winter weather. Are these fat bikes a fad? Fat bikes have been around in one form or another for a long time. Just in the past two years have they been turned in production bikes readily available in your local bike shops.

It's fair to say they are here to stay as more and more manufacturers offer up new, and in some cases, better versions each year. I think the driving force around all season riding comes from the ever increasing love of bikes and biking across a bigger demographic. Having an extended bike season opens the winter months to more than just skiers and it gives people that much needed exercise that tends to drop off in cold weather.

So that brings up a few questions around fat bikes and their uses. Are fat bikes only for snow or sand? Can you ride them on the street or standard mountain bike trails? Again, I think fat bikes are very flexible, but do come with some negatives like weight and poor handling on tight corners. Fat bikes are not great at catching air and riding those tires on pavement is loud with lots of resistance. But fat bikes are solid performers not only in snow and sand, but also in extremely rocky terrain, mud, overgrowth and roots. The stability of a fat bike is great for newbie mountain bike riders and they do give you a little more workout to get you in shape.

I'm pretty sold on fat bikes as an all-around basic mountain bike that is suitable for almost any terrain you can throw at them. Now the haters will hate them and purists will think you're dumb for riding them on regular trails, but what is important is having fun and getting your exercise going. A number of bike shops in our area rent them, so get on one and give it a try!

Judd Jones is a director for the Hagadone Corporation.