Fat Again

After the ITI this year my fatbike was torn down and had a good rest in my garage... till now. Some new parts arrived for my wildfire that are pretty exciting. I had a new wheelset made by Speedway that is lighter and wider and replaced my drivetrain. It was nice to bond with my fatbike again and spend some quality time going through the bike. I am getting tired of using my old beater bike anyway and I would like to go on a grand venture in the Bering Preserve soon.


It'd be great to pass my bike on to a pro mechanic and say here fix it up (as I’ve done when the bike is stored in Anchorage) but since I live here in Nome there is no access to that kind of love. It’s always good to learn the bike though.. but each time I work on it I find that there are these specialized tools that I never seem to have. So I go on amazon and order one up, wait 2 weeks and then move forward until I have to remove something else that I can’t do without a “special” tool. This happened again while replacing the front chainrings. Apparently, chainrings just can’t be screwed in place with a standard allen screw it has to have a ridiculous (b/c I don’t have the tool) notched backing. One could almost use a screwdriver but would risk ruining it. I was frustrated enough to attempt to make my own tool…. This has never worked before but every now and then something I fabricate actually functions. Crude but effective.

So happy to have the fatbike working again ready to roll. Now I just gotta scratch the itch for the next madventure TBA.

Comments

allapa said…
that thing is leaving some FAT tracks all around here!
Phil said…
believe it or not there are actually 5 fatbikes floating around town these days. im not as original as i used to be!
sean said…
A whole winter of training on your racebike? You're gonna crush it this year, Phil!
Those backers for chainring bolts can be a royal pita. A simple way to make a very usable tool for them is to grind or cut a notch into a wide enough flathead screwdriver. Some newer ones come with allen head backers, or torx(if the bolt on the front is torx too).