We already knew that S&W Sports on South Main Street is the place to go for your standard biking and skiing needs. But we’re not doing standard here – we’re looking for the knowledge on some funkier stuff. Turns out, S&W is the place to go for that, too.
Want to keep biking through the winter, across frozen ponds and other arctic obstacles? Sure. Feel like sharing a chair lift to the top of an old ski mountain with your bike and careening down? Yeah, you can do that. How about plugging your bike in for a recharge at night and using about 50 percent less effort to ride it to work the next day?
This isn’t the future (unless you’re reading this several years ago, which would be super weird – and we definitely want to interview you for an article). It’s the here and now. You can actually do all this crazy stuff. Who knew?
Those winter aficionados who don’t want to put the bike away for the season are turning to what S&W owner Tim Farmer called fatbikes, which feature four-inch tires as compared to regular two-inch varieties. You can get studded versions of the fat tires and take fatbikes on frozen ponds, icy trails and even “glare ice,” Farmer said.
The version sold at S&W will run you about $1,900 (more info on fatbikes can be found at salsacycles.com).
“I like to cross country ski, snowshoe, downhill ski, and this is a great alternative to that,” Farmer said. “It gives you the ability to keep biking.”
From biking when you could be skiing we shift to biking where you used to be skiing. Highland Mountain Bike Park in Northfield is open at a former ski mountain, allowing riders to head up with their bikes on the ski lift and ride down through trails of varying difficulty.
The bikes for Highlands riding are built differently, too, featuring two-and-a-half inch wheels and a crazy suspension system with eight inches of “travel,” as Farmer called it, or give. That way when you launch off a 10-foot drop coming down the mountain, the bike absorbs the shock.
“It’s got eight inches of travel, so it just sucks it right up like a motorcycle would,” Farmer said.
Typical bikes for Highlands riding are about $3,000.
You can go from extreme to perhaps “nerdier,” according to Farmer, but still very much alternative, with electric assist bikes.
Super popular in European cities and several major metropolitan areas in the U.S., electric assist bikes feature a rechargable battery back under the rear seat and a motor in the rear wheel that makes riding easier. You can go 15 to 20 miles before you need a charge, and there are four levels of assistance you can select.
The first level, 25 percent assist, essentially just makes up for the additional weight of the bike due to the battery and motor, Farmer said. Level 2, or 50 percent assist, gives you a bit more of a boost while level 3 is 100 percent assist and level 4 is 200 percent assist. Farmer said in level four, you can be peddling at a 5 mph exertion and go about 20 miles.
S&W has an electric assist bike available for rent for those who want to try it out, and Farmer dares you to say you don’t have a great time.
“I’ve yet to put someone on an electric assist bike for a test run and they don’t come back smiling like a kid,” Farmer said. “You feel superhuman on it.”
As much as we hate to admit it, winter is right around the corner, and there’s alternative stuff available in the non-bike pision, as well.
Alpine touring skis are growing in popularity, and even though nobody has ever said, “Man, I wish I could combine the agonizing soreness of cross country skiing with downhill skiing,” that’s pretty much what they do.
Actually, it’s even crazier: by applying “skins” to the bottom of the skis, S&W’s Peter Ellinwood said, skiiers can actually ski up the mountain before removing the skins and skiing back down. The skins are grippy in one direction, so you slide when moving up but stick so you don’t slip back down. The boots on alpine touring skis feature heel hinges so you can achieve climbing action on the way up, but you can lock them in place for smooth sailing on the way down.
It’s a lot of work, Ellinwood said, but it makes you feel like you really earned those downhill runs.
Of course, winter enthusiasts like Ellinwood look at things from a different perspective, anyway.
“It’s like they say, there’s no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing,” Ellinwood said. “Dress warm and get out there.”
