Spent a little time installing Surly Nates on the Fat bike. Bought them years ago but have been waiting for the Vee Rubber H-Billies to wear out a bit more. They're only the 'cheap' ones, 27tpi (nothing flash) but man are they tractor tires! 3.7, so a little smaller than the 4.25 Vees that were on it. This turned out to be rather good. More round profile, they don't 'self-steer' like the Vees did - with extra air in them, they ride up more on the centre knobs, less friction.
Time to take them out for a smash. I'd pumped them pretty hard (over 10psi!) to 'pop' them onto the rims, so it felt easy to ride for a start, up the gravelly path just above the road, then onto the dirt one through the trees. Really mucky up near the top of this and the big teeth really gripped in here. Then onto the road on up through to Ranger Station and up onto my 19th detour, clambering up the rocky edge track for a pic, drizzle drifting through,
then down to the skidder and up the guts (following a guy who was walking his bike, but not making any headway on him). Through Brake Free and stopped to release a little air, then up through Worm and back across to Thompson's #1. Released more air here before dropping in, immediately meeting a triplet of E-bikers, then nice comfy blast down, tonnes of grip, around, onto road, into Thomson's #2, blast, grip, climb. Road to Kiwi, up to first saddle and off over the left, dropping into Governor's track. Tech rock, bit of ping, a few dabs (for fear of 'runaway biiiike') then nice cruise around, and into the climb up the back, steep in places, walked one wee bit, but cleaned with stops the rest, stopping to chat to T on phone and Doug briefly too. 
Rounded out the top and crossed the road to the Nun, riding pretty good, only 2 bad puddles, and the tires worked pretty good at gripping and suspending. Definitely better than the old ones. Across the Kiwi again and up the road, into top Thompson's, climbing up to Vic-top. Usual way in, bypassing the main jump then taking easy way down to cattlestop and down the (wet) rabbit paddock, through the rock garden, back and forth in the gums, usual route, lotsa fun, then out the bottom and down to the 19th gate - having to wait here for umpteen riders and walkers coming through (heesh), including Nik's bro David (oh, and the dude working on top of Old Skool I talked to earlier in the week, with his whole fit mtbiking family and heavy tools onboard).
Down the road, meeting Tra'y in the Dog Park for a bit then agreeing to meet her and Jet over the bottom corner. I peeled out into the 235 trail dropping through for lots of fun, taking the new left line part way down that's been extended (I'd walked down it a couple days before, finding it a dead end), able to push through to the oaks, climbing back up and over to meeting T and J. From here we, walking pace, down to Harry Ell Drive and around home.
Not a bad little 9.5 kms, with 377 m climbed
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