I'm not alone!

Shocking: a fatbike track that isn't mine.

Last evening I happened upon a familiar tire track freshly imprinted on a local trail. The tread profile was unmistakably a Surly Larry. I was at once astonished and impressed with myself at the finding, almost as much as had I found evidence of bigfoot. After all, that is more or less what I had done.

After scrutinizing the tread a bit, the one thing that troubled me was that, although the imprint was familiar, the scale seemed slightly off. Was this left by a member of the elusive Big Fat Larry branch of the family? I wasn't on my Pugsley at the time, so I quickly took a photo of my finger on the track for later comparison. Notice that the distance between the indentations of the two sets of dart-like knobs one level out from the center ridge equal approximately the length of my index finger from the tip to the second knuckle.

Back at home, I checked against my standard Larry. The equivalent measurement between dart-like knobs to those on the track is shorter. I think this is proof enough that the track was made by a Big Fat Larry, and not by a sibling of my run-of-the-mill Larry. Furthermore, the track must logically have been made by a rear tire, as any imprint of a front tire track would have been overridden by the rear tire. This means that the bike attached to this tire was very likely a Surly Moonlander; the Pugsley's chubbier brother and the most numerous representative of the very small handful of frames capable of accommodating such fat rubber.

So, I am now left with a feeling that is probably not unlike that of a dog encountering a spot marked by another dog. I know there's another fatbiker out there, somewhere near me. I have interpreted the clues to develop an image of what his or her bike looks like. Yet, like a dog that lingers for too long while sniffing, all I can do is wonder. I suppose, to follow a dog's example, my next step is to lay down some markings of my own.