End of the pavement/road was no longer the end of the trip. Riders scouted new roads, backcountry trails, finding out all the while that wider/fatter tyres and an upright seating position are very comfortable for commuting/touring. But rocky terrain, soft surfaces and steep gradients still posed a significant challenge. Subsequent advances in suspension, materials and geometry did occur. Most of these advances however focused on speed. This is where fat tyre bicycles come in to the picture. They help tackle the challenge of riding on diverse types of surfaces like sand, mud and snow.

No other event contributed to fat tyre bicycle’s development as much as the ‘Iditabike’. Iditabike is an event under the ‘Iditarod invitational’, a challenge of epic proportions. The first Iditarod challenged participants to cover 200 miles of rugged Alaskan wilderness in the dead of winter. Cyclists are to follow trails left by snowmobiles and dog sleds. These trails are a mixture of snow, ice and water overflow. Walking alongside the bicycle in snow made a wider tyre footprint essential.

Initially, riders welded two or in some cases even three rims to increase tyre footprint and hence the grip, resulting in more riding than walking. In the meanwhile, major developments were made in the state of New Mexico while riding sand dune and arroyos. Rims and tyres developed here made their way to Alaska and revolutionized snow/ice riding.

One of the game changers in the fat tyre bicycle scene was the ‘Surley Pugsley’ with substantially larger rims and bottom brackets. This was in 2005. now almost a decade later, we have fat tyre bicycles that have carbon frames and are rack friendly.