Fatso goes Big Time

As an engineer I have gotten to work on some really cool stuff in my career, and sometimes that really cool stuff gets press coverage.

The above video is a bike which I help to create with my friend Craig at Mendon Cycle Smith. Don't be fooled by the guy talking in the video, Craig created this bike through and through. Craig was becoming enamored with a type of bike with really big tires, we are talking 4 inches here. That's really big! He also has been in love with lefty suspension forks (for most of his adult life as far as I can tell). This is a rather odd looking fork who's asymmetry makes it look like it might be unstable, but its not. So Craig set about to combine his two passions into one lovely contraption. He initially tried using off the shelf clamps for the fork but that did indeed make the bike rather unstable so he asked me to draw up some custom clamps. We dubbed them "Fat Clamps" and they had a few design iterations but I think the end results is beautiful.

So I am very proud that something I helped create has made the big time, verified by the photo shoot going on in the background of the video. The bike was displayed at the North American Hand Built Bike show and is featured in this month edition of Dirt Rag magazine. With all this attention, I think the bike is getting a big head to go with its fat tires, although how big a head can you get when your name is "Fatso".