An article by the Professor.

The 3rd Annual Fat Bike Summit was held in Ogden, Utah on January 24-25, 2014. Bullet and I went up on Saturday to check it out. I’ve never seen so many fat bikes in one place at the same time. I think there were about 150 people racing, and add to that quite a few more that showed up with their fat bikes to hang out. On top of that there were dozens of demo fat bikes on hand for visitors to ride.

Surly had quite a few Pugsleys and Moonlanders on hand to demo.

Salsa also had quite a few Mukluks and Beargrease fat bikes for demoing as well.

Borealis had 6-8 bikes on hand as well.

In addition to these, there were also a a few Fatbacks and handful of Charge Cooker Maxi steel frame fat bikes; Performance is selling this lower end fat bike. These were just the demo bikes. 9:Zero:7 had a few of their carbon fiber bikes on hand, but I don’t think they were available to ride.

The V8 tire looks like a nice all around tire comparable to the Surly Knard, but considerably cheaper. It seems to get good reviews as well.

Trek was on hand with a few Farleys. I think before next season we will see some well designed Bontrager wheels and tires.

We also saw a few other new fat bikes that we had never seen before. There was exactly one Specialized Fatboy racing. We caught up with the owner, from Logan, and checked out his bike. The most impressive feature of the bike seemed to us to be the wheelset and tires. The bike felt pretty heavy to us, but it is nice looking if that counts for anything.

We also spotted a Diamant fat bike which is a European bike, the counterpart to the Bikesdirect Motobecane fat bikes, which we also saw.

Perhaps the most beautiful fat bike we saw was a Durango Hooey. The Durango Bike Company is a small bike maker (husband and wife team) located in Durango, Colorado. They make mountain bikes and this aluminum fat bike. They are all hand-made in the U.S.A. The Hooey was an impressive bike. They even made the front shock on this bike.

We also found a couple guys riding the new Origin 8 Crawler. This is an aluminum frame fat bike with an internal rear cassette. We hefted the bike and it was heavy, especially in the rear. Not too impressive, but I did not ride it.

And finally, a couple other interesting fat bikes we saw.

We had a good time gawking at the bikes and other gear as well as watching the races and other activities.