Originally Posted by metalheart44

I'm an aging road biker that has recently moved from Northern California to Northern Wisconsin. In California I could ride year round on the roads and I never had any interest in mountain biking. In Wisconsin road biking season ended in late October for me and it is not likely to start until late Spring, depending on ice on the roads. However, I live adjacent to a county park area dedicated to mountain biking, cross country skiing and snowshoeing. Walking these trails, some are clearly single track with rocks, roots, and lots of elevation changes but there are other wide gravel roads with considerable elevation changes in a rolling landscape. These gravel road become groomed ski trails in the winter.

Yesterday I walked some of the ski trail roads and they were mostly clear of snow and it occurred to me that I could ride these with some type of non-road bike. I have seen some folks in this park on regular mountain bikes and other folks riding fat bikes.

I plan to start looking for a bike to ride on the gravel roads, but just not sure if a fat bike or a gravel bike with flat bars would be the best option for riding the gravel roads. My brittle bones are not suitable for the single track portions of the park, but I think the gravel roads would be fine and would extend my riding season by a month or two in the Fall and Spring.

Where do I start?