[Closed] Living with a Fat Bike - tell me your stories

In the mud at this time of year I don't trust it. Some people find sliding exciting, I don't.
When I rode motorbikes I had a perfectly good Jap multi . Occasionally taking out my old brit bike was fun. It was worse in every way but still fun.
That's my fat bike.

Well, they're great fun. No different to living with any bike really, just fatter.

They're not slow, they can climb anything you have the legs for, they make you smile, they're deceptively capable at 'shredding the gnar' as the Kids say, they turn boring terrain into fun terrain, they're ridiculous in a good way, folks will comment on the size of the tyres.....a lot.

Reading thread title and start of the post I thought this was going to be a coke and hookers thread!

You can go where no other bike can. That's a good enough reason for me.

I've a Dune that I'm looking to move on that would leave you with a lot of that £2k to play with.

I don't get much riding time these days so having multiple bikes doesn't make sense at the moment.

As long as I don't take it for one last ride, it may end up staying then 🤔🤪

Except for the 100% need for mudguards, as opposed to them just being nice to have on a normal bike, as far as I'm concerned there's no real "living with it", I just ride it. Still love it tbh. If I had to sell a bike, it would be the hardtail that went first for sure, and that's not something I expected- I always thought the fatbike was the +1.

It does depend on what you want from it really. I've never done the traditional fatbike thing- beaches are boring, and salty, and though I've ridden it in the snow and loved it, I'd have been out on my normal bike if I didn't have it. But equally, I've done a couple of enduro races and an XC race on it, done loads of trailcentres, some tweed valley offpiste (golfy was hilarious), just... mountain bike stuff.

I guess, the only thing that isn't obvious is how important tyres are. I mean, that might seem obvious, but til you've experienced a fatbike on bad tyres you can't really understand it. Self steer is just a ride-ruining bastard. The best fatbike in the world is rubbish if it's on bad tyres. And only tolerable on average tyres probably. You can't cut corners.

(for me, that ended up meaning Minions for winter and Jim 4.8s for summer and occasionally a mix... But ymmv. And since the minions were new, that meant importing from the USA for like £75 each, which hurt my soul, on a sub-£500 bike but was so absolutely worth it.)

I love mine. Its not been ridden a huge amount for a variety of reasons but its now my only MTB. Grip grip and more grip in all conditions is fantastic. Drag on tarmac linking up bits is soul destroying

I use it on tight woodsy trails, open moorland ones and trail centres. Its particularly good on slippery roots

I was looking at the Sonder the other day. Not sure if I could sneak something bright red with 4" tyres past even my disinterested wife though...

I made probably the biggest cycling mistake I've ever made in 30+ years of cycling - when I sold my fat bike.

Bought a s/hand but well looked after On One fatty with carbon forks. Made it 1x10 with wide range cassette, then put a 24/36 double on the front. It was hilarious up really steep techy climbs and would flip backwards with me right over the bars before I ran out of gears or it lost grip.

Rode it for a few rides, including snow which was great but, stupidly I decided it was the N+1 I didn't really need. Took up a relative large amount of space and I had 3 other bikes at the time, so it was a scratch I itched then moved on.

For sheer fun I miss it loads and might try to find another.

Now have a 27.5+ hardtail as bike 2, which does cover a lot of the ground the fatty did, although it isn't anywhere near as 'massive' or have the daft low gears and the grin inducing riding they bring.

If you have the funds, space and desire I'd say get one. Put decent tyres on at the right pressure, get gears much lower than you think you'd need and climb something daft.

Still miss using my fatbike for commutes, even though for a vast majority of it's 4.5 years of service it was using 29er wheels. I've not got rid of it, it's sitting in the garage after the driveside crank sheared through the pedal thread in June on the way to work, with all that's happened this year I've not had the mental energy to try and source a replacement crank that costs less than a kidney... I took the easy way out and bought a Marasa in late July, which would also fit my better half, it does the job but it's noticeably heavier than the Wazoo was with 29ers fitted.

Very fortunate to live in Germany's Black Forest and close to Switzerland and we get loads of snow in winter and good dry summers. Its an all year bike for me and no-suss. Very easy to live with and good for 100km + days. Ride it, put it away then ride it another day. No faff / linkage bearings / suspension settings, just a simple fun bike and the rolling circumference is an effective 29" so they aren't slow. This years fatbike meh is 27.5 rims but, whatever.

Tyres, These are a key thing, I'm in the Jumbo Jim summer Maxxis FBF FBR winter camp.
Tubeless, its worth it and its not worth getting in a froth about tyre pressure to the last 1psi which is the ever present topic of fatbike forums. For the UK, mudguards are an idea...

Have a look at 2nd hand (eg that Dune ^^^^ is a great bike).

I'm sure that like a lot of people, its a bike you'll ride, be surprised where it takes you and you'll keep going back to it. Riding a no-suss bike will make the trails come alive in a different way.

The biggest challenge I found was "standards" having built three from the frame up, but it is getting easier. Same for replacing things, just need to do a bit of research. Stuff isn't plain weird but with BB /frame / tyre size differences you just need to be careful what you buy to make sure it fits.

Another vote for Minions as the tyre to run on a fatty, especially for year round fun on trails, rather than sand or smooth trails. A fatty with small tread is almost lethal on mud, washes about all over the place. Changing to toothy Minions was a revelation; bought mine from R2 in Germany.
The Fatty is just hilarious fun in slippery, rooty winter woods. Steeper the better, both up and down. You can get down slippy stuff that no other bike will look at. Do it, you won't regret it; this bike will make you grin like a loon. Oh aye, agree about mudguards too. Mudhugger work for me, front & back plus a down-tube cruddie. Those big tyres throw up a huge amount of mud...

+1, loved my Pugsley - though ultimately replaced it with a more trail orientated bike as it was the gateway to get me back into the baggies after years in lycra.

As others have said, tyres are critical. I really like Surly Nates, but the full fat Knards were horribly self-steery. Did big days out on mine and bounced down a few techy downhills too.

Ultimately, for the kind of riding I do (a few hours at a time, generally winch/plummet in the woods) a trail bike suited me better, but the Pugs was a brilliant, brilliant bike.

I bought a Kona Wozo and love it. Kona warranty is really good too.

Build a Chinese carbon one!

I built a CS197 frameset (v similar geo to Salsa Beargrease, Canyon Dude and the Sonder one) with Hope Fatsno hubs sporting JJ4.0's a few years ago. Very light and a riot! These days I've rebuilt the hubs for 29x3 - Dirt Wizards for the slop and Rangers for summer bikepacking. What with a rack and guards and stuff it's not so light now but still a riot!

I love my n+1 fatbike so much I sold my 'enduro' full Sus 4yrs ago and fatbike's have been my sole MTB ever since.

I would say that tyre choose makes a huge difference depending on the type of riding you do (as does correct tyre pressure). The wrong tyre can kill what is an amazing bike. Also type of fat bike. I had a felt with a 197 rear end, so what could be classed as a snow bike, but it was prob 20mm or so to short as a result for the UK trails I took it on. Still a massive giggle to ride, but not ideal. I now have a smokestone Henderson which is amazing.

As per Kayak23

I guess I should say, though I love the Minions, they're definitely a trail tyre. I had Blutos before and they were better on sand for sure. Never got a chance to use those on snow really. You'd want to listen to some more "traditional" fatbike riders if you're really planning on it being beach, snow, etc rather than just "normal riding only stupider"

SAme note, the Dune was pretty much the first budget fattie that could comfortably do 4.8 and I'm so glad I got that and not one of the 4.0 only options. More is better imo, if you want a fat bike then why settle for the lesser of two steamrollers? The real revelation on this was the Jim 4.8, it's not even drastically heavier or slower than the 4.0 but it's so much more versatile, the difference in mud is ridiculous. It does look much nicer on 4.0s but then it looks stupider on 4.8s so that's still a win.

Nice to see they're still trying to fool people into buying 27.5 fatbikes and it's still not working. Apparently the only part of the entire bike industry where "It's halfway between that new thing you like the look of and the old thing you're a bit afraid to change from" doesn't work.

Are we saying that the Maxxis FBF is totally solid in mud patches? Better than Nates ( which I thought were rubbish)?

Ohno, just seen the 'buy a Chinese carbon frame' above and am intrigued.

Will save the further searching until later this evening, when the wife is in bed - just in case I fall for a Chinese Fatty. That sounds so wrong 😀

Just moved from ancient bud-lou to FBF-FBR.

They grip better everywhere, although are nothing like 4.8" wide so lose a bit of volume and height. They are nice supple tire too.

However, no better in proper mud patches IMHO - a normal sized tire will still cut through better, the big tires still float and slide.

In contrast...I tried it, didn't see the point, but I found beach riding dull, and unlikely to ride snow or soft terrain enough to justify it. Didn't see the point in regular trails either bit folk seem to love them on anything.

What I like about my fat bike was it's bomb-proof handling and go anywhere capability - I used to smash-out 200km+ days and when you're knackered at the end of the day, you could simply point it in the direction you want to go and it would get you there safely. Mine's in storage at the moment, but now starting to see snow on the top of the Cairngorms and I'm strongly tempted to go get it! I've also taken mine to the arctic 3 times in winter - awesome experience if you like your bike riding in the raw.

Nates should be nuked from orbit.

Fat bike tyres should be treated like you treat suspension and dialled in.  You have to ride a fatty to appreciate how much difference the wrong tyres and then the wrong pressure makes - just like you have to have ridden a full suss with say way too much air in the shock or a coil thats too stiff to appreciate that suspension needs to be tuned to the rider.

With shocks you have pressure, stroke length etc and with fatbikes you have width, grip and pressure to play with.

Its not a precise science in the same way that some clowns can get away with walking in longer shoes than others whilst on stilts but who needs rebound damping when you have small children pointing and adults knowingly turning to their partner and confidently stating that you're on one of those new eeeebikes thats what it is,,,

I have demoed one a couple of times when i thought I wanted to buy one. 15 bucks a go and great fun. Maybe do the same?

I have ridden proper tech on one (you just let go of the brakes and it rolled over everything) but i wondered how you would transport it (certainty not on a roof rack!) and the thought of carrying it home if I got a tubeless flat (spare tube weighs the same as a small baby) put me off.

I bought a halfway house Genesis Tarn plus bike which was great fun, cheap and now living with a friend who rides it all the time who loves it too.

See if you can borrow or 24 hour demo one.

I've just hit buy on my fat bike itch - should be here in a week or so...
No idea what to expect apart from the obvious remarks from my cycling companions!
But hopefully it'll roll along rather nicely and surprise a few on their fancy carbon full sussers 😉

Went for a 2021 Trek Farley 5, rummaged second hand market for months, but it's all over the place and not a lot to chose from. The Farley 9.6 at £2600, just seemed a stretch too far for an itch!!

The spec isn't fantastic for £1500, but a couple of bits are an easy upgrade if lacking and it comes with a dropper and once tubeless setup is perfectly acceptable.

It is a 27.5 x 4.5 tyre thing - not great praise for this genre from above posts - hopefully I won't be disappointed...

And taking of tyres - it comes with Bontrager Gnarwhal - any thoughts?!

@stevemuzzy

Most ride tubeless, but as a spare you can get away with a standard inner tune 26 x 2.3 even in a 4.8 as the pressure is so low.

why not a roofrack?  I use a Thule 598 with a fatbike adapter:

winston
Nates should be nuked from orbit.

Just send them to me. I love them. Grip is good.

Bought a secondhand Singular fatbike this year. Have found it to be fabulous on hill tracks in the Highlands. Looking forward to using it when the snow comes this year. Great for grip in steep loose climbs and better than my 29er on boggy surfaces. Fortunate enough to have bikes for most occasions now. Each one has its benefits.

One thing I find difficult is the price of tyres - makes experimenting expensive. I have huskar du tyres and they seem fine.

Just send them to me. I love them. Grip is good.

I'm with @epicyclo - I don't understand how you can hate the Nates? I really rated the pair I used (front and rear).

Yep - Nates are great if you're happy with 4"

HuDus were a revelation when they first came along as they were the most "normal" tyre available. Faster than a Nate, more tread than a Larry or Endomorph.

I'm currently using 4.4" Jumbo Jims. Incredibly fast rolling, great grip. I thought I might need something chunkier for soft/winter conditions but they worked fine all last winter for me so they've been left on.

There's a cheap Nate and a good Nate isn't there- I think the ones I tried were the cheap ones (27tpi) and they were pretty crap, but that was all about the carcass I think. Mostly they were sloooooooooow.

zippykona
Full Member

Are we saying that the Maxxis FBF is totally solid in mud patches?

It's alright. You've got to set expectations a bit, any wide tyre is going to have a hard time on mud, and it's absolutely nowhere compared to, say, a Shorty. But it does get the job done. And the stability of a big tyre does mean that a slide's often much more savable, and paddle-steaming through soft mud more doable.

I'm not really sure what was better in bad mud, Bud or DHF. Bud had that slow rebounding, shapes-to-anything thing going on which really was useful at times, the Minion doesn't do that. But I think the tread of the Minion is a little better.

And the stability of a big tyre does mean that a slide’s often much more savable,

this is something I find in spades - its so predictable as it starts sliding that you have loads of time to save the slide.

Worth considering the wider BB/q factor and resulting potential for knee issues. I can't ride one far before problems arise.

As above, avoid tyres that suffer self-steer like the plague. Been so long since riding a fatty I can't remember which are the bad ones. Had a WTB Ranger recently that was bad for this, and that was just a 3in plus tyre.

Also the big soft bouncy tyres won't quite cover up for a overly stiff frame. I thought the tyres would soak it all up until riding a couple of very unforgiving ones that weren't much fun.

I also seem to be in the minority in terms of my experience in them. I also had the itch so built one up, as I finished it we had our most recent heavy snow fall which most found hilarious. Already had a hardtail with an acceptable spec and there was nothing it did better and more enjoyable, yeah I was a riding a bike which is always good but I found myself thinking well maybe if I upgraded this or that but it still didn’t fill a riding gap that I had so I sold it after five rides and got exactly what it cost me.

The gyroscope spinning of the front wheel can take some getting used to; I guess this is what some folk call self steer..? Essentially that big front wheel, especially one shod with 1.6kg of 4.8" Minion, when spinning straight ahead only wants to keep going straight ahead. It takes a firm hand to tell it where to go next at speed; I've found that treating the bike a bit like a set of skis and angulating hard into a carved turn helps a lot. As does a properly wide bar. For me, that's an 810mm. The toothy edges of an FBF certainly help here when cranked over.

If you're going to ride a fatbike mainly in places with purpose built mtb trails, you're probably better going for a plus bike, ie 3" tyres and "modern" geometry, and maybe a suspension fork.

If you want to ride natural terrain, then it's hard to beat full fat. Go for a bike that will take the fattest tyres because you can always run slimmer if you want. Self steer usually only manifests itself on hard surfaces and often is simply a matter of getting your tyre pressures right. It can also be caused by inappropriate rim width for the tyre - it's not always the tyre's fault.

What's the right pressure? Depends on conditions. I start with about 20% tyre deflection with my weight on the bike.

As for mud, I've ridden it with Black Floyds which are a slick. With low enough pressure it wasn't a great problem, but I wouldn't want to go flat out down a muddy hill with consequences on them. They did make road transitions between trails more pleasant.

Stock Nates, the 27tpi version, are heavy. I knocked a kilo off my wife's bike just by swapping them out for Surly Ednas - which are a little bit wider as well: 4.3" vs 3.8". Very similar tread so worth checking out if you like Nates but want something lighter and wider.

I started with a second hand Puffin with some worn Husker Dus then after rather one too many slides when it got greasy I got a set of 45Nrth Vanhelgas. An expensive game to try out too many models especially when there isn't a huge market for moving them on so a lot of research and asking around to narrow things down to those that are going to be best for the majority of riding that you do.

Pressure wise: if you are bouncing around - let some air out; if the tyres are squirming - add some air. Doesn't need to be more complicated than that unless you are in soft snow/sand when there's some different rules of thumb. Carrying a decent pump with you is essential.

highland man - no thats not self steer. Self steer is an effect whereby the front tyre wants to turn and indeed does start to turn without steering input and / or when you initiate a turn it turns much sharper than it should from the inputs made.

My bike does it with the front tyre below 8 psi and the effect disappears at 9 psi completely

With tj on the self-steer. Mostly due to the amount of grip and low pressure and most apparent on the road - if the pressure is too low the side knobs start to catch when you aren't turning and pull you to one side.

Ohno, just seen the ‘buy a Chinese carbon frame’ above and am intrigued.

My first fatbike was a 9zero7, bought in 2011. I had to import it from Alaska. It was very different to the Pugsleys which were all that was available until Salsa came along with the Mukluk.

Upgraded last year to a Cube Nutrail. Lighter, slightly more modern geometry, Bluto forks and a dropper. It does everything the 9zero7 did and more. It's very much a fat-tyred mountain bike and I find myself comfortably riding more technical terrain with it. As a result I actually sold my Ragley hardtail as it had ceased to have a role.

If course, I live in a part of the country where we do get proper snow, so it makes sense from that point of view too.

@epicyclo or you could buy some + wheels and Sus fork for the fat bike and have an amazing transformer bike.....

GolfChick
Free Member

Already had a hardtail with an acceptable spec and there was nothing it did better and more enjoyable

Aye, it's the last word really. For my riding, the fatbike is almost always "worse". There's been a few exceptions but, I have a kickass hardtail and a fantastic #endurobike and that's basically what's best for 99% of what I do.

But I've always liked the variety you get with a bike that's not as "good". Same as gravel for a lot of folks I guess? I can ride the same trail twice in a row on the fatbike and the solaris and the solaris will almost always be better at it but the thing is that the two rides will feel really different despite being literally the same trail. And it's really hard to do that with two really suitable bikes, and really easy to do it with a less suitable bike, as long as it can still do it. (I tried the same with a retro xc bike and didn't dig that at all, it definitely ticked "unsuitable" but it was just so much work, I just didn't smile much on it)

But it's totally reasonable that other people just don't enjoy that the same, and that the best bike for the job is always going to be the best bike.

and that the best bike for the job is always going to be the best bike.

not the one thats most fun? for me its all about smiles per mile and the fattie provides that

I bought a s/hand Scott Big Jon during lockdown for a bit of fun and really enjoyed it. Sold it on and bought a 2020 Farley 5 (same as 2021 model but without dropper post) and love it. For general riding I find the 27.5” wheels roll better and the Gnarwhals seem a very decent tyre allround - at 15psi they’re surprisingly sprightly on tarmac, quiet too.
I Found the paint scuffs just by looking at it so spent today putting some matt frame protection tape on the vulnerable bits. Rims and tyres are tubeless ready so have ordered some tubeless rim tape and valves tonight. Brakes are basic SRAM Level but they worked ok - Galfer Green pads improved them no end, no squeal now.

tjagain
Full Member

not the one thats most fun?

For some people, that'll never be the "less good" bike, is the point. I like it when it's me + bike against world but I also like it when it's me against world + bike, but it's not like there's a right or wrong way to ride bikes. Some folks will just not dig riding a fatbike like I do

I have a carbon Farley on which I've only run 27.5 wheels. The 27.5 Gnarwhals are great tyres, really really grippy, work well in mud, and with studs in them epic on ice and snow, but they are however heavy and slow and noisy on hard surfaces. Barbegazzis are plenty grippy, lighter, and much faster but I find they are more of a hand-full in mud. I've recently put some minions on (FBRs are at bargain price of £42 from Maxxis at the moment https://shop.maxxis.co.uk/collections/minion-fbf-fbr), and they are working well - much better mud tyres than Barbegazzis, fast and quiet on hard surfaces, handle nicely. I don't notice the reduced width or volume so much but they are ~2cm smaller in diameter than the Bontrager tyres and don't quite have the same steam roller ability over rough terrain.

I run them all tubeless at 5.5-6.5 PSI on mulefut 80 rims. As others have said even half a psi pressure change makes a big difference. Lower than 5 and they may feel a bit wandery on hard rolling, more than 7 bouncing off rather than absorbing the terrain. I'd recommend getting a low pressure gauge - 0-15psi accu-guage from eBay worth the money IMHO!

HTH

they turn boring terrain into fun terrain

I don't know what this means.

I've ridden one a few times although I don't own one. I wasn't overly impressed - bouncier and less positive feeling than my rigid bike, but nothing like proper suspension. The only intriguing thing was leaving the trail and riding on the chossy grass and not slowing down at all. This is the reason I'd get one - for riding on crappy moorland trails that are unrideable otherwise, and we have plenty of those.