Alaska's fat-bike mania spreads its tire track across world

"There's a ripple effect moving outward toward the coasts," Patterson said. "We're finding that people are using these for expedition touring and just to get around to places they never could go on a bicycle before."

Ultra-sport history

Fat bikes have some of their roots in the human-powered Iditarod Trail Invitational, a long-distance race up to 1,000 miles long along the Iditarod Trail.

To gain flotation across the sometimes-packed trail, former Iditarider Steve Baker was one of those who welded together three rims and combined three tires to create a mega-wheel, said fat-bike pioneer Mark Gronewald of Palmer. With triplet wheels front and back, he dubbed his ride the six-pack. The setup carried him along the frozen course ahead of other recreational bikers going village-to-village in the early 1990s, before the invitational race began.

Gronewald often gets credit for launching the fat-bike's commercial effort, but he's quick to name those who inspired him, including Baker and Texan Ray Molino, who created wide rims for desert riding, and sewed multiple tires together to cover the wheels. Gronewald, former owner of Wildfire Designs bike shop of Palmer, coined the term fat bikes and began producing his Wildfire bikes in the late 1990s. There was little interest in fat bikes until they started winning the Knik-to-Nome Invitational across much of Alaska in 2001.

Gronewald improved on Molino's ideas, including the offset rims that place the spokes along one side of the wheel to accommodate for the small hubs that existed then. But he never had enough demand or money to mass produce the bikes.

Surly, on the other hand, could take the risk. The company’s Pugsley changed the game, offering similar offset rims and frames for about half of the cost of Gronewald's.

"I just got squeezed out by the economies of mass production," Gronewald said. He laments the widespread use of the fat-bike term as "kind of a rip-off," but feels pleased he broke ground in a sport that’s keeping more people healthy and outdoors in winter.

As for Pugsley, their Taiwan-manufactured steel bike sells at REI in Anchorage for $1,650. Salsa had the same size advantage. Its latest aluminum Mukluk is on sale for $1,500 at The Bicycle Shop in Anchorage.

In recent years, the Anchorage and national companies have engaged in sometimes heated competition. Alaska's small shops take credit for critical design modifications, such as lowering the top tube and widening the hubs to make the bikes stronger and more comfortable.

Fatback-designer Greg Matyas, owner of Speedway Cycles, pioneered large hubs that allowed spokes to run symmetrically down both sides of the rims, replacing the offset-spoke design and producing stronger wheels. Other manufacturers have picked up on the idea, he said, and he's seeking a patent to protect it.

Devoted following

Fat-bike cyclists swear by their rides. 

Anchorage Police Chief Mark Mew keeps his golden Fatback at police headquarters for lunchtime trips. He used to stay trim running, but the pounding was too hard on his knees, so he took up fat-biking to keep in winter shape. "I love it," he said of his quiet rides through the snow-covered woods.

He uses his fat bike for summer trail riding too, including for ptarmigan hunts in the Southcentral backcountry. "We have shotgun scabbards and we just head into the mountains," he said. "You don't necessarily see birds on the bike, but it's a way to cover five or six miles quick and then ditch the bikes and start hiking."

Tony Fischbach, a walrus biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, has used fat bikes on beaches to study walruses at Icy Cape, about 50 miles north of Point Lay.

"They weigh a lot less than a Honda four-wheeler, and they're cheaper, and you can put them in a plane and fly them to remote beaches," he said. He rented the bikes from Arctic Cycles. The scientists hauled their gear in a trailer behind them, covering several miles of ground easily. "I can't make product endorsements, but they're great," Fishbach said.