Back in the summer of 2013, I took Myrna Mibus, a friend who lives near Northfield, and her son Ryan to the Salem Hills Mountain Bike Trail in Inver Grove Heights for their first ride on a mtb trail. They both had fun (Ryan giggled the whole time, despite a few crashes) and not too long after that, Myrna and her husband Owen bought fat bikes.
Today I accompanied her on her first fat bike ride on the more challenging sections of CROCT’s Sechler Park mtb trail here in Northfield.
The discussions I’ve had (online and off) about my March series of blog posts examining some of the factors that discourage seniors from engaging in off-road cycling has led me to the conclusion that those factors are relevant for the general population of people who ride bicycles, not just seniors. That’s the bad news.
The good news? I’m convinced that there are some things that could be done to mitigate those factors and that it’s time to experiment to see what might work. A summary of the problematic factors:
According to this post on Facebook, employees at QBP “spent weeks turning this year’s copious snow into a fat bike demo course” for their annual Frostbike dealer show at their headquarters in Bloomington. (I was there yesterday, doing board member booth duty at the MORC booth.)
I don’t know for certain, but I’d bet that John Gaddo was the instigator, designer, and chief test rider. (I stole the above left photo from his Facebook profile.)
Last Thursday and Friday, I attended the IMBA Midwest Fat Bike Access & Grooming Workshop in Cable WI, a gathering of practitioners devoted to improving off-road cycling and fat biking in winter.
The event was sponsored by QBP and hosted by Minnesota Off-Road Cyclists (MORC), International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA), and the Chequamegon Area Mountain Bike Association (CAMBA).
Following a late Thursday afternoon/evening fat bike ride by approximately 15- 20 riders on the newly groomed Esker trail in the CAMBA trail system’s Cable cluster, participants gathered for the opening reception at the Lakewoods Resort. QBP’s John Gaddo showed Cold Rolled, the documentary by Clear & Cold Cinema featuring the 15-mile winter singletrack Snow Bike Route (SBR) that’s part of the Noquemanon Trails Network in Marquette, Michigan.
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