I attended Freewheel Bike‘s 2nd annual Winter Bike Expo ("the world headquarters of winter riding fanatics") on Saturday at their Midtown Bike Center. (I blogged about the event on my Mountain Bike Geezer blog here, including my photo album). While the event had offerings for bike commuters, the bulk of the action was aimed at mountain biking in winter, using fat bikes especially. QBP’s brands Surly and Salsa each had a big presence at the event, as both offer a number of fat bike models. (They’re sold locally by Mike’s Bicycle Shop here in Northfield and Milltown Cycles in Faribault.)
I’m doing some consulting work on the 2nd Annual Fat Bike Winter Summit & Festival coming up at the end of January in the West Yellowstone area, so I’m locked in on the trend. And the Expo gave me a picture of how much enthusiasm there is here in Minnesota for fat biking.
I don’t (yet) own a fat bike. Last winter I didn’t need one, since we had so little snow. My hardtail 29′er worked fine just about everywhere I went. But with a solid 8 inches from our weekend snowstorm, things are looking up for a decent winter. And more and more of Minnesota’s mountain bike parks and other trails allow mountain bikes.
So let’s use the discussion thread attached to this blog post to discuss winter biking locations, conditions, equipment, group rides, and events.