Five fatbike riders came out for a fun first FCC Fatty Tour of 2022!
Leader Travis Naibert led Chris, Kim, and Ginny while Eric played caboose. We started at the southern end of Love Road, where a moose was browsing underneath the Alaska Pipeline. Fortunately, the moose did not wander into the trails we were on during our ride!
Ginny, a long time biker, pulled a fatbike out of her car, rented from Goldstream Sports, and announced that she had never been fatbiking! The rest of us had done a bit of fatbiking before. But Kim is recovering from a knee injury and had been on her fatbike again only the day before after a long hiatus. She was swayed to come by the mellow ride description.
Travis took us on a 4.8-mile loop that had some challenging parts due to soft trails. Everyone did great. We stopped several times to regroup and took opportunities to ply Ginny with our fatbike wisdom. She said some of it was even helpful! (Like lowering tire pressure on soft trails; leaning back a bit to avoid a squirrelly front wheel; and looking farther down the trail, not at your front tire, for better steering.)
At the end of that loop, we took a break at the cars and chatted while eating a few snacks brought by Ginny and Travis. Most everyone called it good after that, but Eric was curious about the additional 6-mile loop Travis had planned, so Travis took Eric out on that.
Eric was glad to have Travis leading, as there are a myriad of snowmachine and dog mushing trails in that area to the west of Nordale Road. This is a great place to go exploring, but if you don’t know the area be prepared to get a little lost or to mark the intersections so you can find your way back. If you know which turns to make you can bike from there all the way to the Chena River Rec Area and beyond! This is also not an area you would want to bike in the summer – this is mostly swampland – but it makes for some awesome winter riding.
We hope to offer some more Fatty Tours in the future. Watch for announcements on our Facebook page or on our listserv.
