The truth be told, I’m not a real good fisherman. A good
part of it is simply lack of practice and lack of adequate instruction. During
the 26 years that I was a Park Ranger I rarely took time to do any fishing, and
when I did it was with my ultralight equipment that I bought in the
Adirondacks, 35 years ago. I used to really enjoy fishing in the trout stream
behind our cabin in the Adirondacks, or in Fall Creek below our home in McLean.
And when my father-in-law was still alive, and we went to their home in East
Texas I usually joined him in some bass fishing. Ironically, when we moved to
Minnesota where the walleye is king, and trout streams are few and far between,
I pretty much put away my fly rods and even my ultralight pack rods, except to
teach my granddaughters how to fish.
In the past year two things have changed that. One is my retirement
from the Minnesota DNR, and the other is my Cogburn CB4 fat bike. Although I
have another job, and my EMS/STS training business, I now have more time to
devote to fishing. I have even become active in organizations such as
Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and Trout Unlimited. You could say that
retiring gave me the time, and the Cogburn gave me access.
Cogburn Outdoors is a division of the cycling giant, Quality
Bicycle Products (QBP), headquartered in Bloomington Minnesota. QBP was the
first bicycle manufacturer to embrace fat bikes, back in the early to mid-2000s
with the introduction of the Surly Pugsley. Fat bikes had their origin in
Alaska and a transplanted Minnesotan brought the idea back to Quality, who did
more than take it and run with it; they created three separate divisions, Surly,
Salsa and Cogburn, to design and market the wide-tired mountain bikes.
Of the three, Cogburn is the one specifically geared
toward the outdoor sportsmen, primarily hunters and fishing enthusiasts. With
it’s custom wrapped frames featuring camouflage from Realtree, Kuiu and First
Lite, internal cable routing, exceptionally low gear ranging, and of course the
4-inch wide tires, Cogburn’s CB4 aptly deserves its self-created description as
a “human powered all-terrain vehicle designed to take hunters and anglers far
into the backcountry quickly and quietly.” That last section of the description
is what “hooked” me. I had the use of a Surly Pugsley for the year prior to my
test-riding the Cogburn for the first time, and although they share the same
tires and front fork, the aluminum Cogburn handles like a totally different
machine. It was “love at first ride.”
The thing I keep telling people who ask me about my
Cogburn, is that it puts the fun back in bicycling. Not that I don’t enjoy
riding my Volcanic mountain bike and Bianchi touring/road bike any less, but
riding the Cogburn is like being a kid on your first bicycle. Even my daughter,
who I hate to admit is in her 40s, had this huge grin on her face the first
time she rode the Cogburn. It is, quite simply, a fun bike to ride. My year on
the Pugsley taught me how to manage tire pressure, so I keep the tires at 10 to
15 pounds in the spring, summer and fall, and 5 to 10 pounds on snow in the
winter. The drive train is Shimano Deore 2 x 10 speed, which obviously is not
the best Shimano offers but is perfectly adequate for this application. I find
I use the small ring whenever I am on less defined trails and forest roads, and
the large front ring on gravel and paved roads and trails. As most people who
have ridden with me know, I am not in this for speed or competition, so this
set up works fine for me.
At the time that I bought my bike, QBP was going through
some redesigns on their cargo racks, so I opted for a Blackburn Outpost rack
and cages on the bike and they have worked out extremely well. When I decided
to get the Cogburn Gear Carrier to tote my cased fly rod, the Blackburn rack
took a little engineering finesse, but I have had it working really well ever
since. While I am talking about the gear carrier, the one drawback to the whole
Cogburn system is the clamps that hold the carrier to the cargo rack. They are
small, they require the use of an Allen wrench, and it is very easy to
lose pieces, because you almost have to stand on your head to get the clamps in
place. To be honest, I do not keep the gear carrier on the bike because it will
not fit in the back of my truck with it on, and if I put it on the rear rack, it sticks up above the topper thereby
affecting gas mileage. So when I am in the field, putting all these little
pieces together, inevitably I lose something. I would like to see Cogburn offer
accessory packs containing extra clamps, bolts and nuts, and different sized
gear brackets, but that’s just me.
Although I ride my Cogburn year-round, off and on, I have
dubbed it “the official fat-bike of fall.” Whether it’s backcountry fishing on
the Chequamegon or Superior National Forests, or simply leaf-peeping in nearby
County parks, for me fall seems to be the season when the Cogburn really shines.
It is also a fantastic “bikefishing” vehicle. Over this past summer the
National Forests I frequent were subjected to severe windstorms that left much
blowdown. Forest Roads into numerous designated trout lakes and trails along my
favorite rivers were often impenetrable by truck, but with a little work I
could almost always get the Cogburn through. It’s really nice on a sunny fall
day to be able to skirt the blowdown, and go into a backcountry lake, knowing
that if you see anyone at all, it’s because they either hiked in or were on a
mountain bike themselves.
The Cogburn is not inexpensive, but it is worth every
penny. It is an extremely versatile bicycle and as I said earlier extremely fun
to ride. As much as I like my custom Volcanic Vx7 patrol mountain bike, if the
Cogburn had come out a year earlier I may never have ordered the Volcanic.
(Yeah, I would have. You really can’t beat the comfort of a custom – built
bike.) If you are somebody who would use in ATV for utilitarian purposes rather
than sport riding, and if, like me, you prefer human – powered transportation, then
I would encourage you to check out the Cogburn at your local QBP bike shop.
Okay, I admit you’re not going to haul a full-grown bull elk out of the Montana
backcountry with it, but it is going to take you farther and faster than on
foot, and quieter and cleaner than using a motorized vehicle. I still may not be the best trout fisherman in the world, or even the neighborhood, but at least with my Cogburn Outdoors CB4, I am getting out there more often!
Proceeding on,
Trailpatrol
