Temperatures are dropping, but not quite enough. The wind has blown all the beautiful fall leaves off the trees. It’s dark by the time most of us get out of work. There may be some snow, but not enough to be useful; mainly just enough to make mud. You probably still want to get outside, but there are certainly enough hurdles in place to provide numerous excuses when motivation is lacking a bit. For those of you on roller skis – Go get it! I’m sure I’ll see you folks out on the ski trails whizzing past in perfect skate form. One good option for the rest of us is the Fat Bike. It let’s you ride places you may not really want to take your other bikes – rocky beaches, Sandy two track, snow covered single track, etc…. You won’t be able to help but smile when what would be a slog on any other bike is just a walk in the park. Also it saves you from taking out your 6 bar, linkage driven, high pivot, idler equipped regular mountain bike out in the mud – especially after you just had all 26 bearings replaced at the end of the regular season. Then when the dreaded shoulder season is over, you still have all kinds of opportunities to ride groomed fat bike trails in the area to break up your 7 days a week XC ski routine a bit. If by chance you aren’t someone who xc skis – well then you should….but if you aren’t going to – all the more reason to snow bike! Come spring – time for more mud and poor route decisions – the fat bike is a faithful companion yet again. In the summer you can even have us build you up a sweet set of 29er rims laced to fat bike spaced hubs for even more versatile fun. Put some fun back into your shoulder season – throw a leg over a fat bike.