FIRST DATE

My First Date

(With Bunny)

Early February, 2015. The depths of winter. At this point annually, I am always struggling with SID (seasonal induced depression). The seemingly constant darkness, the cold, the wind, the loneliness...all wear me down. Every year at this time, I spend the next few weeks waiting (less than patiently, mind you) for spring and its promise of warmth, sunshine, friends, and bikes. Yes, bikes. The thing I miss most through winter is the times spent astraddle one of my bikes, laughing, cursing, sweating, smiling, etc with all of my besties! This winter was much the same as years past, longing for spring. Ugh.

But wait. In recent years a new type of bicycle has arisen. The Fat Bike, aka the Snow Bike, aka a-bike-that-can-extend-one's-riding-season-significantly. I've seen many teammates and friends getting one of these curiosities. I've been tempted, but is it worth dropping another chunk of change on a bike that honestly would get limited use for this dedicated roadie? For several seasons I've wondered just that...and came to the conclusion that I did not need one. (“need”... therein lies the key.) I would see photos and hear tales of the fun exploits folks were having on their fat bikes and silently feel envious, but never enough to be compelled to actually buy one.

It's now the first weekend in February, and I'm down at Bloomington Cycle, one of our local bike shops. Hiding behind the staircase I spy one of the employee's fat bikes. A Surly Pugsley, and it's in my size. The staff sees me ogling it, and walks over and says, "Take it for a spin?" "Um, sure, why not", I think. I've got nothing to lose. I roll it out the door and jump on...seat's too high. A quick adjustment and I'm off. My shop is located right on the bike path running through town, and I headed south down the trail. It had snowed a few days earlier and much of the white stuff had melted away, but there was still a fair amount there, especially where the plows had thrown the snow from the streets. My finely honed roadie skills at first had me automatically avoiding any of the remaining snow and ice on the path...but wait a second. This bike is made for going right over this type of stuff. I soon found myself aiming for the deepest, nastiest piles of winter's finest precipitation. Yes! This is what winter riding is all about. I cruised the trail for 45 minutes, looking for drifts, untouched patches of snow, anything that would have had me cowering in fear if I were on one of my other bikes. This beast would roll right over anything in its path.

I returned the bike to its owner, apologizing for making such a mess of it, and proceeded directly to the back room and told the guys to order me one. Mine would be a bit out of the ordinary, most of these are multiple-geared, but I wanted a single speed. Because, well, I'm just a bit different. This was on a Sunday morning, the order would be placed early Monday, and my newest steed should arrive Wednesday.

Anticipation. Patience. Ah, who am I trying to fool, I was like a kid on Christmas Eve. I stopped in the shop Tuesday evening to see when would be a good time to get the new ride. Deliveries are generally about 2:00pm. Perfect, I’m off work at 1:45, plenty of time to go home and change, and… yippie…. new bike!!! On Wednesday afternoon I walk into the back room to see Scott just finishing building my new baby. She’s a beauty, the color’s official name is “Grape Soda”, (terrible tasting stuff), think of a medium purple color with plenty of sparkle. We roll out the door for a quick spin around the lot, fits like a glove. I approach the checkout, credit card in hand, and in a few short minutes she’s all mine. A few quick questions for Scott (I know next to nothing about mountain bikes), and I load Bunny into my car and take her to her new home.

First order of business is a polishing, this is likely the cleanest she’ll ever be, and I want her to look her best for her maiden voyage. Ah yes, that first ride. The weather and circumstances combined to keep me from taking Bunny out for a week and a half. So, what to do for that time? Polish her again, mount headlight and taillight, and mount my Garmin. And polish her again.

Friday February 20 the forecast is calling for snow overnight into Saturday morning, with snow accumulations of 2 to 8 inches. I I enlist a fellow new fat bike owner, Dennis to join me as I play in the snow. Sounds like Saturday will be the day!!!

Saturday morning, and I awake excitedly, like a 5 year old on Christmas morning. I stumble to the window to see just how much snowy goodness we received, and I see….dirt. Plain brown ugly dirt with nary a flake to be seen. What the……?!? What cruel joke has the universe chosen to play on me, in my moment of anticipation. Pot of coffee brewing, I plop down in front of the computer to kill some time and I see that folks south of here had gotten MY snow. Pictures from 60 miles south showed 8-10 inches of lovely, fresh, white snowy goodness. Depressed, I nibble a couple cookies and wash them down with the steaming, black, caffeinated nectar. My mind slowly kicks into gear, and...wait...I’ve got it!...Brilliant! I can drive down to the snowbelt to play. I message good friend Dennis to suggest this, and soon we are loading up for our trip south.

Thirty minutes down I-55 and the ground is still mostly barren. I'm starting to think we may have to go further south than originally planned. Another five minutes, and we both breathe a sigh of relief. Snow. Wonderful fluffy crisp snow! We pull into my old drive in Lincoln, with four inches of the winter stuff crunching beneath my tires. Unload the bikes, pull on our cold weather riding gear and we're ready to roll. While I love the fact that the town of Normal does an outstanding job of snow removal, I equally love the fact that the city of Lincoln plows only the very busiest streets and leaves the others to melt naturally. The residents there may not share my sentiments, but for the fat bike riders, it is a very good thing.

Dennis and I headed out through the streets of the 'hood in which I grew up, traveling the same streets I cruised 45 years ago on my Schwinn Sting-Ray. The bikes may have changed, I may have grayed a bit, but the grin is still there. I take Dennis on a tour of some of my old haunts, past my old house, and down some of the older streets with the lovely older houses. There were few cars out, but plenty of car tracks, which I quickly decided to try to avoid...just for the fun of plowing my way through the untouched snowfall. We meandered through the west side of town, working our way toward Lincoln Lakes. My thoughts were that the road there would be more pristine...but alas, my thoughts missed their mark. Apparently this had become a private area, and the road was plowed and salted. Not so much fun for us. We rode off the main road until we approached a barricade warning us of prosecution if we continued our present course. U-turn. Back into town we went, where on the outskirts we saw a young child and his mother sledding down the side of a levee. Good enough for sledding? Even better for fat biking. I jumped the curb...actually no jumping was involved, I just turned and rode over the curb. These bikes can do some impressive things! We said "Hi" to the mother as we rolled by and then headed all the way across the town to a park on the north side.

Kickapoo Creek County Park, on the outskirts of Lincoln. Some roads, some trails, both single and double track. About half of the trails were completely untouched, with pure virgin snow! We walked our new steeds across a suspension bridge to access the longer trails.

Now I must confess, this was the first time in my adult life I’ve ridden off-road. I felt out-of-place, maybe confused, but I was having a blast! This bike is some serious fun! Dennis said, “I feel like a fifth grader!”....I did too. Once I learned to relax and let the bike deal with the terrain, all I had to do was supply a bit of power, some directional input, and grin. Yes, grin like an imbecile. Maybe it was because this was a whole new experience for me, or that it had been too long since I’d ridden outdoors, either way, this was so much fun I expect the current US Congress to outlaw it. (Did I mention I have liberal tendencies?) We traversed every inch of trail on that side of the creek, and re-crossed the bridge to find some more trails on the south side.

We rode all of the trails there, crossed an open untouched pasture, and were about to head back to town when Dennis spied a tiny bridge….sure, why not?

The trails back here were much less civilized than the others, definitely testing the skills of the riders, but these bikes would plow through anything we were brave (or foolhardy) enough to try. We soon ran out of trails at the park’s boundary, so do we turn back? Heck no, that cornfield was just begging us to ride across it...

...and so we did!

Across the field we rode. our last off-road excursion for the day. Back to town and the snow-packed streets we went. On the way I discovered perhaps the only drawback to a single speed fat bike: at road velocities (16-ish mph) my cadence is so high, and the tires are so soft that I start to almost bounce down the road, looking like one of those huge fertilizer spreaders going down the road. In town again, and about a mile back to the car, still grinning and giggling like a school kid.

We logged two hours of fun that day, enjoying all the locals eyeing us as we rode past while they were shoveling their drives, laughing at the piles of snow thrown up by the snowplows, and just living without a care in the world. This is more than a bike, it’s a mood-enhancing, time-traveling, smile-inducing wonder of modern cycling! If you don’t want to get one of these, DO NOT test ride one. One short ride was all it took to sell me! If, on the other hand, you think this just might be something you’d enjoy, then heck yes, go test ride one. You’ll soon be a proud fattie owner too!

Thank you to Caryn, Scott, Mike and all the other fine folk at Bloomington Cycle and Fitness, for giving me a couple more months of the year in which I can ride my bikes!