Fat Thursday

On their blog this morning, Surly posted a buncha details and pics about their new products. Lots of their new offerings are fatbike-related. The forums lit up and through the course of the day, the excitement drove the needle on the fatbike nerd meter straight through the side of the housing.

I was able to read the blog text today at work, but IT filters out the pictures, so I just now got to look at them. Damn, the fatbike choices just got wildly more diverse and delightfully more confusing. I'll have to follow what fatbikers are saying on the forums and process it all over the next few days/weeks.

As far as whether it will affect my buying decisions, I'm not sure. I'm really wanting to go after a reasonably light rotating mass and the new Marge Lite scores well in that department. And the cool thing is that the new tires are gonna be available almost immediately and fatbikers are such hackers and they're gonna be playing with all kinds of shit as far as fitting them into existing fat frames. Will I get smitten with the Moonlander itself? Only time will tell. Maybe the Moonlander is such a drastic evolutionary step that current fatbike owners will be compelled to convert and more of the current crop of fatties will be available, and at more reasonable used prices and that's what I'll go after. Once again, time will tell.

One thing for sure, it's really fun to watch this unique velo genre evolve, because unlike most others, it's in its infancy and there's tons of experimentation going on. I needs to gets me in on it. One other thing for sure is that Surly has reached the size, as a bike company, that might automatically make you not like them quite so much anymore just based on that fact, and that if not ubiquitous, Surlys are at least common. But I love them more than ever for their innovation and for the way they seemingly listen to and respond to what people ask for. Maybe that respect will have the bigger affect on my buying decisions. Only time will tell.