Remember when mountain bikes were called “fat tire” bikes? Yeah, me too. These days fat usually denotes fat bikes which utilize 3.8″ wide tires and up. And now there’s 29er and 27.5 plus bikes too. I’m at a loss on what exactly I should call my mountain bikes that run 2.2″ tires.
If 3.8″ and up is “fat,” and 2.8s are plus sized, I guess 2.2 tires are like”freshman 15″ or “dad bod” tires? Or maybe they’re “husky.” I believe that’s the size pants I wore as a kid. Which I suppose sounds better than “fat kid pants,” even though if you wore husky pants you were often called fat by nearly everyone in your life. At least that was my experience.
Regardless of my past, fat-shamed life, I think I’ll go with husky. Yes, I rode the husky bike on dirt roads today since the Boone is on the sidelines for a day or two with a busted spoke.
I really don’t mind riding my mountain bike on dirt roads, and have been doing so on and off again since I’ve been riding bikes. The only thing that I find with the PrOcal is that the 32T ring is just a tad small for dirt road riding around here. If it were hillier, then it would probably be just fine, but on the flat pimple bosom roads of Isabella County, a 34 or 36 might be better. Back when I was riding my old 9 speed stuff on the El Mariachi I had and XTR crank with a 44 on and can’t really think of a time I had to switch to my 32.
All that tire and gear talk aside, I had a decent 27 mile ride from the house today. I felt pretty good physically, and am hopeful that more rides will be had in the coming days.
The ride was slower on the husky bike, but faster than on the Fatterson. Of course I stopped like every five miles to take photos, so who knows (or cares) if it was actually faster or not.
Later.