SNOW.

Last winter was disappointing in respect to snowfall.  Nobody minds if we miss out on the -20 temps, but we like to have some snow if it's going to be cold at all.  Especially since fatbikes are so on the rise here.  I bought my Mukluk 2 last year, and didn't get to ride much on snow.  I still had a great time however, and I've been looking forward to this winter ever since.  

Last Sunday brought us our first big snowfall in the Twin Cities.  Some surrounding areas apparently got a foot and a half.  We didn't see that much, but got our fair share.  We went from brown to thoroughly white and fluffy.  I was finishing a trip for work in the morning, and thankfully we were able to land in the heavy snow and low visibility, since I wanted to be done with work and ride my Mukluk!  :)  Jonathan was up for it too, so we met at the MN river bottoms like usual and took off.  

In many places it was quite ridable with a little grunt work, and in some places it was as much fresh powder as even a fatbike will plow through.  (I've heard that with higher temps and many people out riding/snowshoeing the bottoms have become pretty nice to ride since, but haven't been back down yet.)   Packed snow and fresh powder are two different animals.  

We had a great time seeing what the Mukluks/ourselves could take, and simply being out in nature when it's dumping snow.  We like our four different seasons.  Hopefully this winter will bring lots of snow like Sunday did.  Have fun out there!

Mukluk'n Duluth's Beaches...

The day before Halloween I took the Mukluk up to Duluth to get a change of scenery.  I had been in ground school most of the month, and was about to live in a Memphis hotel room for too much of November for work, and I wanted to get some air.  Northern lake air.  

Duluth has a beach front extending from Canal Park that goes on for 6 miles, so it makes for a very nice fat bike out and back.  I've been told it's better to ride when things freeze over, but I enjoyed this day as well despite the sand being in it's loose non-winter state.  

The wind was up pretty big, as you'll see from the waves in the following pictures.  Made things a bit chilly, but that's Duluth and I don't mind a bit.  Fat biking the beach was the warm outdoor option apparently, as people were surfing in dry suits.  Duluth matches the tenacity of other outdoor minded towns in that people don't stay inside for a silly thing like cold.  They ask what fun they can have in it.  Yup.  

I was also trying out a new piece of gear, imagine that.  I love my Revelate Designs frame bag on my Mukluk, and I've recently added a handlebar sling (which I didn't use for this ride), and a Viscacha expandable seat pack (that's the new piece).  I had way more than enough storage for my little day tour, but wanted to try out the gear.  I had with me lots of water, lunch, a stove, coffee press and cup, lights in case I stayed out late, a wind fleece jacket for stationary times, and the normal cycling tools and spare fat tube.  Probably some other bits in there too but I forget.  

The sand went from hard pack to super loose, and the Mukluk floated most of it with ease.  There were a couple sections that no bike would stay up in, but that's what feet are for.  I played more with tire pressure on this ride than I have in most of the first year of owning a fat bike, and found that in the loosest stuff I could ride, 7psi is my winning pressure, or right around where my sidewalls start to lose form with my rider and gear weight.  

I rode the whole beach out and back, with a bit of exploration of some woods near the end.  

I'll be returning in different seasons, particularly winter to ride the dunes in frozen form.   

Mukluk with waves and cold weather surfer in the background (look close)...

Miles and miles of great sand and debris for rolling big tires over...

Winning pressure of the day...

Out near Sky Harbor airport...

If you know Sky Harbor at all, you can barely make out runway 32's approach end...

Duluth is for fat bikers...

The Headless Fat Biker of Lake Superior...Happy Halloween!

I'll be back in the cold...

Rainy fatbike afternoon..

The weather in STP has been a roller-coaster this week.  September usually brings fall and an end to the summer heat, which I look forward to being a Northerner.  Well, last year's hot winter lead to this year's  hot summer, and tuesday was in the 90's with 40mph wind gusts.  Gross.  I did get out anyway that day on my Long Haul Trucker for a jaunt around town, and it was simply biking for the sake of biking- not particularly enjoyable however.  So when it finally cooled of yesterday and started raining, I at last felt some fall in the air and brought the fatbike down off it's garage hangers to get out into the Minnesota River Bottoms.  I had no real plans for mileage or goals of any kind other than enjoying the kind of riding the big tires bring.  Floating over miles of sandy trail, beach, flood plain, and muck is a good time if you ask me (and an ever growing number of cyclists in MN).  

I started out at the Sibley House historical site in Mendota Heights, which is a popular meeting place for river rambles.  The trail started out downright clean for rainy fall weather, and as the day went on and the sections of trail thinned, I got the broad range of conditions the area can throw at you.  Anywhere from stuff that could be handled on a cyclocross bike, to muck and sand that only the fat machine likes.  

Large bird that stayed put just until I took this picture- so it's the white blur taking off.  :)

Getting thinner and weedier...

OK, getting sticky and heavy...(still fine with a fatbike however)

Where is the trail?  Wait, who cares.  

I'm pretty excited for the upcoming fall and winter seasons, as I think the fatbiking scene is pretty stacked this year.  More and more people are starting to ride big tires, and more events are showing up all the time.  Plus, maybe it will actually snow and get cold this year.  :)  We'll see.  But I think there will be more people to adventure with either way, and I'm planning some good stuff.  Hopefully ideas meet reality.

Route here.

Start of winter fat biking...

We received some snow today. It's still falling in fact. I don't think it will be any tremendous amount, but it made for a fun fat bike wandering this afternoon.

I headed out with a friend of mine from Hidden Falls Park in St Paul, and we meandered through woods, beach, and a little bit of trail. The confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers makes for some good fat bike exploration possibilities, and it's right out my back door. I plan on riding down there quite a bit this winter.

The Mukluk is really an amazing bike. There's no need for a trail, which allows me to explore areas near where I live that I've never taken the time to see. I pretty much just wander off into the woods and see where I end up (well, I do navigate).

Riding the river floodplain feels a bit like an odd sort of slow, obese trials riding- it's a lot of picking lines over obstacles, but instead of jumping, it's just rolling over stuff. I'm sure that sounds contrived and perhaps pointless, and maybe it is, but it's fun. I like it.

And the shoreline riding is perhaps my favorite fat biking near where I live so far. Our local rivers provide great scenery and tend to remove you from realizing you may still actually be in a big city. Today involved floating over lots of sand, which is awful to ride on a non-fat bike, and rolling plenty of rock beds. We dove into the woods whenever the shore got too full of downed trees, and dove back whenever there was a good stretch to ride. When the snow started coming down hard, we paused to enjoy watching snowy sheets of ice float by on the water, and got excited at the prospect that we have a whole winter coming to enjoy on big tires and skis...it's just getting started.

Riding through the debris of the Mississippi floodplain...

Shoreline of the Mississippi, covered in fresh snow...consistency varied today from loose to packed frozen sand, to gravel or rock beds, all covered in snow toward the end of the ride...

If you're interested, here's where the ride took place:

Early fat bike rides...

I’ve been breaking in the Mukluk and enjoying it all. I’m predicting a lot of fun on this bike as the seasons change and we dive into another Northern winter. And even though I’m looking forward to the cold riding, I sure haven’t been minding the extended fall we’ve been having. It’s been a stellar season for riding here in MN, and I’m going to accept is as a pay back for the months of missed riding post doctor stuff. Not bad.

Last weekend I did something I’ve never done on a bike, thanks to the new fat machine- I headed up north of Grand Marais, and covered some Lake Superior beach miles. It’s amazing where the Mukluk can go- I sure couldn’t have comfortably ridden through the loose rocky shoreline on any of my other bikes. My Karate Monkey probably would have made it through, but with way more struggle. Now this doesn’t mean the fat bike is some sort of miracle machine and there was never any hike a bike- it’s still super loose rock, and much of it off camber, but I was riding the majority of the time over rocks, runoff water, driftwood, sand, and even a few bones of expired critters- all the while with a big dumb smile enjoying the new riding capabilities.

I would have had a great time just sitting on this stretch of scenery, so being able to combine it with one of my favorite pastimes was great- I’m glad I bought this bike. I’m going to have to do some research to see if a beach ride overnighter route can be figured out somewhere on Superior.

Dropping into beach goodness...

There's the big dumb smile...

Exertion and relaxation...

A new fat bike in it's element (one of it's many elements)...

So cool floating lines through stuff like this on a bike...

Not a bad sunrise after climbing out of my tent the next morning either...

I also got out on a local Mukluk ride yesterday morning with my friend Nate who was riding a maiden voyage on his newly built up 9er. We headed from our neighborhood in STP down to the Sibley House on the MN River to see if we might meet up with a “river ramble” ride that Gnat from Salsa Cycles was putting on. We just missed them, as they left pretty early in the morning to get some sunrise shots in during the ride. We saw them a couple times but couldn’t manage to connect with them. Our ride was great however. There’s a great amount of river bottom trail to ride, and if you’re sporting big tires, there’s a ton of off trail wandering to do with much wildlife to see. It’s a floodplain, and you can pretty much ride wherever you’d like in it on 4” rubber. The Salsa ride was expecting to do anywhere from 30-50 miles of rambling. Including the pavement part of our 2-man ride, we covered 23 in the small amount of time we had before we had to duck for other commitments. I’m thinking of heading back down there today to explore some more before it gets buried in snow for the winter.

Sun waking up the river bottom, which was being visited my many happy cyclist yesterday...

Variety of big birds seen along the river ramble...they too like the fall mornings...

I’m loving the Mukluk so far and I can’t wait to see where it takes me in the future…