Wellll, pretty, and pretty slick too. BUT, "Fat bike...Fat chance" In these parts, the guys that ride them do so in (to me) unimaginable conditions. So, f'rinstance, shortly after I returned home from Oz in mid-Feb and the temps were around - 20 to 25 (that's the high, y'understand, sans windchill), some guys at my LBS were headed up the valley for, they said, a Fatbike weekend in the snow. Jeezus, Mary an' Joseph, I said to myself, but didn't say anything 'cept "Good luck and enjoy, eh?" Turned out that it remained just as cold, but snowy and windy too, so they called the whole thing off.
I wondered what was going on: Can one use Fatbikes only in such conditions?--do they require such conditions to show their stuff, snow & savage cold I mean? (They are sold her as winter bikes/snow bikes.) Or, owning a Fatbike, does one have to venture out in such conditions in order to show manliness? (Or in Canada, to avoid having your passport revoked if you choose to stay home 'cos you're somehow unworthy?)
A good friend used to teach at Univ of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, and he rode his 10-speed across campus to work, back in the day. His reckoning was that it made better sense to ride his bike to work for 5 minutes at 30 below, rather than spend 20 minutes walking. I understand that logic, not least 'cos "it's a dry cold", as they say on the Prairies. Hard for me to fashion or fathom a similar case for the Ottawa Valley in Feb.
