Two Wheels - Six Strings

Random news and thoughts about various two-wheeled projects and music, especially my band, Skull Full Of Blues.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Fat and Snowy Commute

I worked eleven hours, yesterday.  When I left work last night, on the motorbike, it was still 60 degrees F at 5:30 PM.  Overnight, a cold front moved through.  It was 30 degrees and snowing when I left the house, this morning.  I worked almost 12 hours, today, and left the lab at 6:30.

The temperature was 15 degrees.

One thing I noticed, this morning, was that the fat bike needs some fenders, if I'm going to commute with it.

The bag catches a lot of spray from that huge tire, and I don't like that.  At this point, there are no fenders available for these bikes, commercially.  Surly Bikes is making noises about coming out with some, but I may just have to come up with something on my own, in the meantime.  (Notice how the tail light points down toward the rear tire, due to how the bag hangs.)

I stopped on the way home to take this picture.  My phone told me that I couldn't use the flash "due to cold weather".  Good thing I stopped under a light...

Before leaving the lab, I used my big brain to come up with some cutting-edge technology to solve my droopy-light problem.

I had a good ride home.  There was quite a bit of the churned-up snow, which I now refer to as "dry slush", that I usually hate so much.  But, the fat bike rolled right over it.  That makes me even more glad, now, that I pulled the trigger on this bike.  Now, if only one of my friends would come up with one so we could ride together...

x

10 Comments:

At 9:22 PM , Blogger adventure! said...

Maybe one of those Carradice bag supports would solve the droopy-light issue? I've had that problem on my saddlebags as well.

Did the inside of the bag stay dry? Those cotton duck bags should be able to take a licking.

 
At 9:31 PM , Blogger Jon said...

I have a support for the bag, on my Handsome XOXO. The light droops on it, as well, though not s badly.

Everything did stay dry, inside. I just don't want to cover the bag with road grime.

 
At 7:56 AM , Blogger Rob said...

Colorplast DIY fenders.
Not very elegant....

http://thelazyrando.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/fenders-for-pugsley/

http://www.bikehacks.com/bikehacks/2011/09/coroplast-fenders.html

 
At 11:50 AM , Blogger Jon said...

Rob: I know a lot of people like those, but to me they are just butt-ugly. I'm leaning more toward getting a couple of the Royal Enfield alloy fenders, like I have on the front of the Scrambler, and adapting them.

 
At 11:51 AM , Blogger Jon said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

 
At 3:59 PM , Blogger Wilson said...

The bike is looking good! If it could speak I wonder what it would say about going from balmy beach use to snow covered hilltops!

 
At 8:14 PM , Blogger LvilleTex said...

We're high and rather dry here. Looks fun, and love the fat bike.

 
At 9:35 AM , Blogger Brad said...

You know...I have been doing some research on fattening up the KM. It seems that if I had some 26" disk wheels with fat-ish rims, I could run it as a fat bike. Furthermore, with the addition of a pugsley front fork, I could run extremely fat up front.

here is a converted KM.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5134/5510226898_23b6b398ca_z.jpg

 
At 9:37 AM , Blogger Brad said...

Cripes.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5134/5510226898_23b6b398ca_z.jpg

 
At 9:46 AM , Blogger Brad said...

One more go, then interwebz can kiss my schvetty ones.

http://tinyurl.com/7bdssev

 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home