Large wheel parking

Issue I have with riding a fat bike as a commuting bike, is parking the beast.  

Almost no bike rack can hold it, unless I park beside the rack.  I found this spot be a perfect spot and at the same time, make me laugh.

At the time same I would also mention that I moved the controller again, this time from the middle to the front bag (yes, this makes the front bag near useless now but it's cleaner looking). And I replaced the rear rack with one that doesn't hold onto the seat post.

Full on!

With all the ice, I've only been able to commute half way of my normal route but today I did the entire ride. 1hr 35min bike ride and I made it from home to work with minimal ice.  With in a weeks time I think all the ice will be off the bike paths.. until then, it's slow and steady.

End of last year: 25km 48min

Today: 25km 1hr 35min

I have some time to make up.  It's never been about speed for me but almost double the time is pretty bad. But by the time I got to work, I was tired!

Time to get serious

I'm rather upset with myself, as this winter I wasn't nearly as productive has I had hopped. 

To much ice on the ground, which leads to unpredictable movements.  Snow, 1 feet deep.. No issue! 1 square inch of ice on the ground, boom.. I can slide out!

So now that spring is almost here, I've decided for the next month I'm going to be taking a different approach with my habits and removing the thought of eating out of my mind all together.  This is just going to be for a month long.

I'm doing a full month long Soylent 2.0 meal replacement.  Starting March 17th, as the products should be coming in only today.

The PLAN:

• 1 before leaving the house
• 1 after I get to work
• 1 at lunch
• 1 before I go home 
• And have a normal dinner at home.

Currently back up to 315lbs (I gained 15lbs since December! 5lbs per month..)

Each bottle is 400cal, my size requires 3000-2500 per day.  So in drinks alone, it's 1600 cal, leaving me with 1500cal for dinner.  I'm not going to go crazy and count every cal but it's something to keep in mind as I do this.

Fat Bike Rack

This winter has had a lot of challenges.. mostly a certain area that has been less than safe to travel by bike.  So I'm now a proud owner of a fat bike bike rack.  This sucker holds 2 fat bikes!

So now I am driving part of the way to work and then dropping my car off and biking the rest of the way in.  I'm still getting about 2 hrs of biking in daily, I just don't take the direct route into work.

Winter Riding part 3 - Hands

Warm Hands!

One of my issues with an e-bike, that I somewhat need to see my computer interfaces on my handle bars, so unless I get really creative, the idea of using Pogies is out of the question for my riding.

However, I found some awesome DAKOTA gloves that are rechargeable via USB, that warms up my hands, all the way into the fingers and for me.. most importantly, my thumb!

These are very comfortable and bend really easy around the handlebar grips.

Winter Riding part 2 - Feet

Cold Feet

Once when I was around 14, I got frost bite on my toes.. They were black but didn't loose them thankfully and generally they are normal except when it comes to being in -10 weather.. then the big toe goes numb and start to hurt.

I had to come up with a solution to continue riding. So I started to look around.

• Heated hockey socks ($250 CDN) a pair and had to be washed.  Not ideal, expensive but would work.
• Heated souls, ($200 CDN) came with long cables and external battery packs.  Cumbersome but would work fine.
• Then I found a pair of carbon wire souls that were all in one with a remote fob in the hunting section.  ($100.00 CDN) but to recharge them I had to remove them from my shoe everytime.  So I did what anyone else will do, and made them work for me...

Step 1: Adjust the soles to the boot, this requires some trimming and I cut the rubber cover off the back, where the ON switch is and the recharging port is.

 Step 2: Measure up the back of the heel to where the ports are on the soul so I can get at them.

Step 3: DRILL baby DRILL! I drilled both shoes the same way and then put a boot cover over the boot to give it protection from the elements + protection from the wet snow from my feet, double win!  These black boots are pretty old, so I had no issue with trying this out on them and with out the boot cover, the desert dust that is embedded into the boot is there to stay, so with out the cover, they were damn ugly.

This is what the boot look liked with and with out the cover on it.  It stays pretty good, ideal for biking but not really for walking around on.

Winter Riding part 1 - Face

Goggles Up

Cold Face

I'm going into my real second year of phat bike riding during the winter.  I was pretty successful in my attempt last year but I did things wrong.  This year I think I'm more prepared.

Goggles Down

First, I finally found a good mask for my face that protects my face and allows me to breath when I start moving.  With that, an ANTI-FOG goggles are important.  I found a pair at a used sports store, best $5 I spent.  When not in use, the goggles go up and out of my face.   However, with the mask I cannot wear a pair of standard sunglasses.

The helmet is a snowboard helmet that includes ear covers.

 I've also updated my boots with covers, updated my gloves and added a side saddle bag allowing me to layer off my clothing when it gets to hot. 

This morning it was -2C and I was boiling hot by the time I got to work.  So far so good!