Here is my story, it involves a death and a broken bone.
- Actually, that’s quite a dramatic opening, to be honest. The death was a very expensive Mountain Bike, the bone broken was not even mine.
I like riding bikes. I don’t care if it is up or downhill, through mud, wet, dry easy or hard trails, drop-offs, beach, gravel road or pavement. I just like riding. But not road bikes – riding with cars and trucks actually sucks to be honest. Some people like being a road cyclists, you know those types. The unfriendly ones that never say hello as they glance down from their $10,000 Road Cycle at us minorities on our $10,000 Mountain Bikes…
I like to move between off and on road, hills or rocks, grass or whatever. I guess I’m describing an All Terrain, preference type of riding.
I can’t claim to be a downhiller (aka ‘ a hiller’) or even a trail king or an enduro racer. I’m good at many things bike, but I am no ‘elite’, nor do I intend or aspire to be one.
I am reasonably efficient at riding, I have good balance and pretty good spacial awareness to sneak through places on a bike. I know I can handle a bike well but I accept that I am or will never be the best rider in the pack.
Skill comes with practice, practice and practice and more practice and then eventually turns into ability.
Fat Bikes have been around for a while and still are. In my corner of the World, they never really took off. I first sighted one about 3 years ago and never paid any attention to it. She looked stupid to me, tires can only but be heavy and why the hell would anyone want to pedal that thing.
So I ignored it.
Before I went Fat, I was riding a 2019 Specialized Epic Comp Evo
The Evo is a beautiful bike, full suspension. 100mm rear 120mm front. Geometry is sweet, it weighed in around about 14Kg. I tried to ride it everywhere and over everything I could. And it did. The rear shock uses the Specialized brain technology that switches between hard and soft tail. I was about 60% of dialing her into how I ride when we parted ways.
The Epic Comp
Then I hit a Ute going downhill as myself and a mate was moving fast, ute was coming up slow. We were on a public gravel single lane road and ‘BANG” = end of Evo. It was 4 months old.
Here is what my helmet looked like after impact. 
It is easy to say now, that, without a good helmet I wouldn’t be here typing this. I was lucky. My mate was lucky too, he only broke his collar bone (which wasn’t really that cool) but his bike was ok – he had the same bike as me, Epic Comp Evo)
I impacted, slid rolled, got up and walked, my bike didn’t get up ever again, my mate did not get up that well. Long story short. Accidents Happen. We were lucky. My bike and Phils collar bone took one for the team.
getting fat
I was loaned a Specialized Fat Boy bike a week later to kick around on and have some fun.
WOW
====== first ride impressions
Very light, easy to move, easy to ride, handles well. Comfortable, like really super sweet. Not really what I imaged it would be
Winds up well, the first test had me rolling 35km on the sand and 41km on the road at Max effort. (meaning it didn’t stay at those speeds for long)
Also flicked around a few single track trails and it rode exceptionally well, simply clicked in and the fat boy gripped into the track, I didn’t push it at this stage.
OMG surprised. Not what I was expecting. Tyre pressure at this time was 18 PSI front and rear.
Summary of the first ride: I wonder if this can go up and downhill well. How much can I push this bloody thing? What can this thing not do?
Googling and talking to the local bike shop helped me understand tire pressures on the Fat Boy can change up the experience, somewhat.
There were plenty of articles online talking about snow riding, dirt riding, racing, etc. (hmmm? Racing, what would that be like up and against the other bikes)
====== Second ride impression
Three things happened here.
Firstly: I thought I would see what it was like spending a few hours out and about in the ‘fat boy’ saddle. Like how comparable is this to say, my previous (now retired) bike. So out I go, this time for a 3 hour or more venture, just a rocking around everywhere ride. Road, Grass, Gravel, and Sand. Nothing challenging, just riding. Hmmm, actually not bad.
Secondly. I really liked it. Like, really liked it. Could see my self using this as my only bike.
Thirdly: I started to think really hard about biking stuff, mainly wondering what sort of riding do I actually really enjoy doing?
I mean, what is it about all the rides I enjoyed so much that I want to go do it again and again.