Jan. 23, 2015, 11:21 a.m. -  Pete Roggeman

#!markdown It's ok, I'm well used to people using language or tone on the web that would never be used to my face. I won't hold it against you 😉 Even though you said I was being exceptionally daft - and again, that's debatable - because I still don't think you're getting my point. Rather than name-calling you on it, I'll try to explain. If it sounded like I'm trying to constrain fat biking, it wasn't my intention. But I'm going to stick by the fact that no matter what is happening now while fat biking is in the middle of its 'darling' phase, I don't think people will continue to buy fat bikes and use them to ride in 'regular' trail riding situations unless there are extenuating circumstances. And by that I mean: it's their only bike, or they ride in winter more than summer, etc. Sure, you can take one along on a regular trail ride and pedal it and shred it and have fun, and some people are doing that - but how much of that is because of the novelty of it? You may disagree on that point, and that's fair. The thing is that when people are sold something that turns out to be different than what they thought they were buying, disenchantment will be damaging. No matter how versatile fat bikes are (and it's funny you were trying to talk me into this point when it was the one I was making in the first place), if they end up in the wrong hands, that is to say the hands that don't want to work with that tool - they'll still gather dust. For some people. Others will buy and use them for all the right reasons - and that's great. Yes, I'm overjoyed that fat bikes bring joy to people. But you'd be bored as shit and not commenting if that's all I had written, correct? In addition, it's my job to poke and prod a little bit. I'm happy to help us all celebrate being bikers as well, but it's not that simple from this perspective. On the supply/demand front, a little anecdote for you. A company that joined the fat bike foray this year was recently crowing about having sold out their first run on the day they released the bike. Great! Guess how many units that was? Fifty. If there are a dozen or two or three dozen companies that are happy about selling their first fifty (and this isn't a boutique manufacturer), that still isn't a lot of bikes. Yes, Surly and Salsa and others are selling them more than fifty at a time, but this is still a niche that is over-marketed by the brands at the moment. In two years we'll see how much attention they still get. Don't get me wrong, I'm pro fat bike, pro bike, pro ride whatever the hell you want as long as you're smiling, but I'm also wary of the mistakes that are made time and again in this business and I just hope we don't have a lot of tear-stained bourbon-scented beards a few years from now because the fat bike done got killed before it really got rolling.