A local cycling shop provided free “fat bikes” for participants who rode the course at Brandywine Country Club in Peninsula, Ohio.
Brandywine Country Club in Peninsula, Ohio, joined with a local bike shop for an event that put the club’s 18-hole course to unique use on a winter Saturday, the TNS news service reported.
The “Fattyshack” event allowed participants to use snow bikes, also known as “fat bikes” because of their wide wheels, to ride on the country club’s golf course.
“The fat bikes are basically the same as a regular mountain bike,” Doug Charnock, store manager of Peninsula Century Cycles, told TNS. “However, the frames are a bit wider to accommodate the wheels. But they’re lighter than a regular bike to be able to handle the different kind of terrain.”
Century Cycles provided the fat bikes for participants for free, but the riders had to sign a waiver before entering the golf course, TNS reported. Two trails were offered—a calm, easy one on the front nine holes for beginners, and a course with more hills on the back nine for advanced riders.
Whether participants brought their own bikes or borrowed one from Century, Charnock said they needed to realize that fat bikes ride differently from regular bikes.
“There’s a lower tire pressure in these bikes,” Charnock told TNS. “It just means you have to pay more attention to how you’re balancing the bike, and it requires a little more effort to pedal.”
Scott Cowan, owner of Century Cycles, added that bikes are gaining favor for non-recreational use, too.
“I’ve got employees that commute into work on these bikes,” Cowan told TNS. “They ride them in every day, and they’ve not missed a day of work no matter what the weather looks like.”
For the event at Brandywine CC, TNS reported, the weather was perfect.
“This is new territory for us and, thankfully, we couldn’t have gotten better weather,” said Kim Nakel, the club’s Events and Outings Coordinator. “You need a good combination of freeze and snow, and that’s definitely what we have.”
The event attracted people who had their own fat bikes and first-time riders who simply enjoyed being outside in the winter, TNS reported.
“This is definitely a new experience, but it should be fun,” one participant, Angie Ridgel, told TNS. “If you’re going to live in [northern Ohio], you have to learn how to embrace winter.”
Ridgel and her husband, Jason, had gone cross-country skiing that morning before coming to the golf course, TNS reported.
“We had tried doing something like this once before on [a local trail], but there wasn’t any snow,” Jason Ridgel said. “But this time we’re going to take advantage of it.”
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