By now you know that Pugsley was created to go where standard “all terrain” bikes flounder. The floatation and traction afforded by large-volume, low-pressure tires can get you over and through otherwise unrideable terrain…sand, mud, wet rocks and roots, ice and many kinds of snow.

The Pugsley frame has 135mm-spaced horizontal rear-loading dropouts with a derailleur hanger. This means you can set it up with a derailleured drivetrain or an internally-geared hub. Run it with a singlespeed freewheel or a fixed cog. You have lots of drivetrain choices.

The stock fork accepts a 135mm rear mountain hub, just like the frame. This makes it easier to install and remove the wheel (a big tire on a big rim benefits from a wide opening), and it allows front and rear wheel interchangeability. This means you can have the ability to carry another full gear cluster, a singlespeed freewheel, or a fixed cog on the front wheel. And should something go wrong with your primary drivetrain, you have the option of swapping wheels and continuing on your journey or retreating to a place where you can make necessary repairs.

Pugsley is available as a frameset and as a complete bike. The complete bike sports a nice mix of components chosen for their durability and value. This year we changed the complete bike features Marge Lite rims and Microshift thumbshifters, which work well especially when wearing mittens. The front hub is now our Ultra New model, and the front derailleur is now a more modern and sensible D-type, and we include the adapter clamp even if you just buy the frame. We added an extra small (14˝) frame size too this year, and changed the color to keep things interesting.

There are other fat bikes out there these days. Lots of them use equipment we originally developed for the Pugsley. The Pugsley has not suffered in popularity with these new offerings, because it works exceedingly well and, hey, it’s fun too.