Spring break = Party time on fat bikes

Aitidal, Rahmah, Nadhrah and Syamim (foreground) take a break
on the trail with Jordy, Heather and Emilie.

One of the things I love about mountain biking is the way it brings people together in both expected and unexpected ways. I met most of my closest friends because of bikes. I’ve met all sorts of riders from various states and countries because of bikes and this silly blog.

That’s what led Nadhrah Kadir to send me an email a few weeks go when she needed help finding fat-bike rentals for her spring break trip to Alaska. Nadhrah and her friends are from Malaysia and attending universities scattered around the United States. For their vacation, they wanted the full Alaska experience, including a bike ride.

Because it wouldn’t be right to let someone come all this way only to ride the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, I set up an evening ride that included some singletrack.

They might have gotten a little more than they bargained for, but they were all smiling (and uninjured) at the end, which is all that matters to me when taking newbies out for their first ride. Nadhrah told me it was the best experience she had in Alaska, which still makes me smile.

Fat bikes put grins on faces, regardless of where the faces are from. And how else would four young Malaysian women end up spending an evening with a curmudgeonly mountain biker and his friends in Alaska?

One world.

Roll over it with fat tires.