"Are Fat Bikes Killing Old Man Winter"

"Are Fat Bikes Killing Old Man Winter"
Mountain Magazine | November 2016

“The winter of 2013 was pretty dismal in New England. The January thaw was warmer than usual. February brought rain. The snows of March never really came. All winter, I pined for nor’easters and sub-zero temperatures, for powder days and four-hour skate ski benders. But mostly I rode my bike in my living room, watching Deadwood.

I also watched something else: people in my region of Vermont and New Hampshire thronging to buy fat bikes. They rode them on snowmobile trails, covered in a veneer of crusty snow. They rode them on dirt roads that turned spongy in the afternoon sun. They even rediscovered some singletrack trails and packed them into rock-studded ribbons of ice. My friends, in other words, were moving on from winter.”