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been messing around with the idea of getting a cheap fat bike for a while now. still waiting for the right bargain to come up, and to sell some other bits.
but seems a good ida to get 'stuck with the right hub sizes.
150mm front seems obvious as that's what blutos are. Tho i may never want to run suspension, seems like a good idea.
Rear am i best going for 197mm like the calibre dune has? or 190?i understand the is started with 5" tyres coming in. tho i will want to ride on snow, i'm not bothered about 5" tyres. will 170mm be limiting for choice of 2nd hand/cheap wheels?
BBs/cranksets are pretty much settled at 100mm now, right?
of course these things may be just determined by what comes up, btu i was close to persuading myself that the bargain ritchey frame-set on Merlin at the mo was a good idea, til i saw it was 135 front, 170 rear.
i'd like the possibilty of having some swap-out road wheels for the frame too, so availablity of cheapish/2nd hand hubs is also why i'm asking.
opinions welcome : )
The only one I wouldn't go for is 190, most wide stuff seems to be pretty settled on 197.
If you believe some, 170 is dead and buried. I'd disagree, it's not so popular but there's loads about. I don't think it will disappeear any time soon.
BB, yeah 100mm is failrly standard, but plenty wide ones using 120mm.
great, thanks
Choose hubs that are adaptable, like hope for example, then you can adapt them to what ever you need for relatively cheapness.
Love fat bike standards...
135 front is qr, 150 is through axle and stiffer. Rigid forks come in both widths and some 135 hubs go to 150 with an end cap swap.
190 is qr, 197 is a through axle and potentially a little stiffer.
I think that the wider 190/197 are great for wider tyres, and a wider tyre needs a wider hub to stop the chain dragging on the tyre wall.
Wider tyres need wide chainstays needing wider cranks. Wider cranks avoid heel / chainstay issues so now, everything works together. 100mm Bb cranks have a spacer so they are actually the same overall width at the pedal as a 120mm bb frame.
i also think that the actual hub on a 190 is the same as a 197, it's the end caps that are different.
How heavy are you? Lighter riders get away with 4" tyres on snow and sand, riders sponsored by Greggs may need the extra float of 5" tyres. Quite a few people suggest the sweet fat spot is actually 4".
future proofing: probably less 170/177 rear bikes around but good hubs are rebuildable and will be going for ages. Only an issue if you swap stuff across frames in the future.
I've never seen a wheel other than the very cheapest that can't do both 190 and 197, it's more or less the equivalent of 135x12 and 142x12.
170/177 is a perfectly good standard but it's much more limiting and doesn't really have a lot of benefit other than cheap availability... And even though wider isn't necessarily better, losing the option of wider tyres is a loss both for you as you try it out, and for resellability. If you're building a more traditional fatbike then it's spot on but for trailbike/allrounder use it's all negatives tbf. (I'll never have a 4 inch tyre in the back of mine again, I think, but that's just my usage)
Cranks are fiddly because there's quite a lot of deviation in there, there's an element of just figuring out what fits. But basically you want to be as narrow as you can be. Like, officially my Aeffect is for a 170mm rear but because I'm single ring I was able to flip the ring and get good chainline on my 197mm rear.
Honestly, if you can find a used Dune at a sensible price it's really hard to beat- you can really make it whatever you want, which isn't so true of a lot of the other budget fatbikes.
ok great. al as i suspected. i'l be sticking to 197 and 150 then.
much as i would love some hope fat hubs martymac, they would push my budget jsut a little...
Honestly, if you can find a used Dune at a sensible price it’s really hard to beat- you can really make it whatever you want, which isn’t so true of a lot of the other budget fatbikes.
This is a good tip, there are a fair few used bikes with good spec... The Dune is a good one but there is a bit of a frame cracking track record there.
Get something with all the bits you need....
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/fs-fat-frame-and-bits-job-lot-bluto/
Will throw in in a front hub to fit too.
Somebody is selling a set of 150/197 wheels with tyres for £175 over in the Facebook group. I'd grab those for a start.
They'd go nicely with the Surly ICT frame/forks/drivetrain that I have for sale of course 🙂 Just a set of brakes to find and you're pretty much there.
thanks for all the offers folks. which facebook group btw roverpig?
i'd be after a medium, not a large and i'd be after the whole bike, or at least frameset, wheels and cranks, for about 350 quid, so options a bit limited to the likes of dunes and wazoos.
open to offers tho. had great offer from mr sausage but just a tiny bit too expensive for me
Ah, well, yeah they’re not the cheapest when you buy em, i was taking a long term view.
It's the UK Fatbike Selling page. For some reason it's a private group, but easy enough to join.
Sizing is all over the place these days. My ICT says it's a large and was when I bought it, but the numbers now look more like a medium (440mm reach, 601mm stack). But it's academic since it's almost twice the price you're looking for. As a few people have said, if you want cheap you really can't beat the Dune. It's 150/197 with a good frame. OK the bits hanging off it are a bit budget, but most (beyond maybe the brakes) are perfectly functional. If you enjoy it you'll probably end up spending as much upgrading it as you would on a more expensive bike, but if you don't you haven't lost much.
yep, i'm holding out for a dune then.
martymac, i do have 2 pairs of hope hubs already, and have been glad of their adaptability many times! but this time it's just a budget deal i'm after : )
so Dune owners, how tall are you? are you on a small or a medium?
i'm just under 5'9. my reckoned ideal ETT length would be about 595 i reckon. think medium is 585 and large 610. or kinda bang in between the 2. my proper bike has a 600mm tt, and a lay-back seat post right enough. it's fine. my dad bike has more like 610mm. and a layback seatpost too.
but i like my bikes to feel small underneath me, low top tube etc as i have stumpy little legs. and i like a short stem. so none of that really get's me any closer. i guess with a medium i can at least lengthen the stem, with a large i can only shorten it so far.
but i'm tending towards a large now, looking at those numbers...
anyone similar sized?
I am 5'10" and was riding a large Dune, quite a lot of seatpost showing, would suggest either size would fit.
If buying 2nd hand then check the drive side chainstay for chainsuck, this is where the frames tend to fail.
Try and find one that was upgraded with a new chainset early doors.
I'd get whatever wheels fit whatever frame you want. Fatbikes are inherently niche, even the most popular 'standards' are probably dwarfed by the number of Dura ace 7800 freehubs still out there (which were so niche they only work with DA 7800 cassettes and were replaced with standard free hubs mid model cycle).
Yes you can't fit 5" tyres in a 170mm frame, but you can usually squeeze a 4.5", I'd like a set of 4.8" Minions, but I console myself that Floaters are (were) only £20.
Ditto at the front, 135mm QR might be less sexy than 150mm bolt through, but On-One forks are ubiquitous and cheap, similar quality 150mm rigid forks are 3x the price if you can find one in the UK. You could pick up the front end of an On-one for £70 or so on ebay.
I'd just keep an eye out for a full bike, The Calibre Dune does probably have the more upgradeable frame/components, but you're trading that for a disposable drive chain and brakes if not already upgraded. An original On-One Fatty maybe has less upgrade potential, but is still a good bike if you just buy it and ride it as is.
Caveat: I own an On-One Fatty and despite being a serial bike upgrader and component snob have actually stripped it back to singlespeed.
thanks tinas. so is a fatty 135 front 170 back. save me trawling about trying to find out : )
and also, the frame failure is probably as a result of the chain suck? had heard that CS was the main issue.
O-O Fatty also has old-style RDS spacing for front brake whereas everything else these days is FDS - a bit more faffing to fix.
FWIW most decent hubs are readily convertible between QR and through-axle e.g. 135QR / 142x15; 170QR / 177x12 and 190QR/197x12.
If you wanted something pretty 'universal, then a frame with 100mm BSA BB, 150x15 forks and 197x12 would work with pretty well any wheel / tyre combo going including 29+, 27.5"x4". Narrower BB means you can run a narrower chainline for tyres up to 4" or run 120mm spindle cranks for wider tyres.
Fatbikes are going to remain a niche, but aren't going to die out because they enable you to ride places e.g. sand and snow, great as a backcountry expedition bike and are great fun for general riding.
Dunes, cracking on the chainstay, 1 mate broke 2, 1 definitely caused by chainsuck (he has also broken 4 different other frames, his ICT is proving tough to break).
Mine remains in one piece and is used in place of my c456 and as such ridden as hard as I am can. Northwind too and it's much older.
Size wise, mines a large and I'm 5'8" and fits just fine.
thanks mugboo
i'l be sure ti try to avoid a chainsuck victim then.
My 2016 salsa beargrease is 150 / 170 spacing and QR front and rear. does this mean I am obsolete already?
I have a cracked Dune frame in the garage you can have 😂😂😂😂😂