For those wanting to expand their reading when it comes to Fat Bikes and Bikepacking here are a few of my favourite links.
Fat-Bike.com : The name says it all. They do reviews of fat bikes and fat bike accessories, you will have to go back a bit for bike reviews as there seem to be less of those lately but there are a fair amount of tire reviews and product introductions that make this site a pretty decent one to visit once a week.
Spanner : This guy is from the UK and devotes a large segment of his blog to offshore custom Ti bikes. His information is well researched, and I’m digging more into his site now that I’ve done the math and a custom Ti frame from China is now about the same price as an Al frame set purchased in Canada, I guess we really have hit peak fat bike here and I’m already seeing a marked decline in selection in Western Canada. I will probably drop him an email in the near future with questions regarding going the offshore custom route and post the answers here if I get a response.
Bikepacking.com : This site is great as an intro to bikepacking and covers topics of interest to the experienced bike packer. They don’t do a lot of gear reviews but the ones they do are well written and are done by people that actually bike pack. A favourite feature of mine is the Routes section of the site which will introduce you to routes you may not have heard of or just give you something to day dream about at work. Also some great trail stories get posted on this site.
Maxthecyclist : This site is similar to a lot of entertaining blogs but Max does wrenching, and just trying new things with an existing frame which most bike sites never do because they are trying to sell you a new bike every time not show you what you can do with what you have already. He doesn’t do this a lot but the best example of customizing a ride he has written is this article about two speeding a Karate Monkey. This is actually helpful when you want to tweek your own ride. He does seems to have a Surly fetish but hey I have a Salsa fat bike fetish, so go find your own bike brand you like best.
Finally The Radavist : This site is definitely California-centric but every couple of weeks they have a write up I find interesting, if you hit the site more than a couple times a month you have a bike porn addiction as they have some great pics of mostly older road bikes or gravel grinders/custom touring rigs. I don’t really know how to describe the site but if I was cracking wise I’d say it’s Thrasher magazine for bike couriers.
offtrailoutdoors1 