So…Whilst selling some of my spare parts to help fund a new 29er for longer distance stuff. Mrs. H has put her foot down and stated clearly that I am not allowed another bike…For the time being anyway! So after thinking about how I can get around this I have purchased a pair of On One fat Not fat 29er wheels. I only really want the rear as i’m planning to run a set of 29er forks with a standard 29er front wheel. Why? well I love my fatty. Its set up with Blutos and some light weight good quality DT 710s with hope hubs, but with Bluto and Nates its a chunky 35lbs. Next year I will be doing some longer distance events and I’m just thinking lumping the fatty around will make it harder work and given some of the events I like doing consist of some linking road sections the added drag on tarmac makes things even harder. My other bike is a medium travel 650b ‘Enduro’ Sleigh so also not ideal.

I’m hoping my franken bike will give me other options, with only the swap of wheels and a couple of shakes with an allen key.

Has anyone else done this? Any thoughts? things i need to look out for? I realise its a compromise in more than one sense but i’m hoping it will give me some versatility! Will post pics as it progresses!

Some German chap wrote a blog post about doing this with a Puffin. He thought it worked pretty well.

Edit – couldn’t find it quickly on google, I’m sure a more concerted search would find it.

If weight is your concern, why not fit a rigid fork and a 29+ tyre on the front? I don’t think a 29+ tyre will fit in the rear of an O-O tho. A 29×3″ Knard rolls really fast on hardpack

Puffin Transformation

29er plus wheels fit in my Puffin in practice but in reality there is so little mud room it would be unpractical.

That was with a Knard on a Dually.

A Dirt Wizard on a Dually would probably be fine.

I’m not sure though this would work on the OO Fatty.

+1 for going with the non fat wheels and a rigid front fork.

A friend has a beargrease, and he puts 29er wheels on during the summer. Like you, 29 rim build on to a fattie size hub for the rear, and standard wheel in a set of 100mm x fusion forks up front. XC hardtail without the +1 hassles from his wife

Thanks for the feedback guys.
Its not a weight only issue, whatever I do the Fatty is never going to be a light bike. However if I can get away with most of the 29er benefits and lose most of the fatty drawbacks then i think i’m on to a winner. I have purchased a set of non fat wheels, cheap heavy things. However i will only use the rear. Next step is to find a light set of short travel forks like Reba’s and a decent front wheel. If i like how the end product rides and it ticks the boxes I can always get a lighter rear wheel built at some point in the future.

To be clear, I’m not tryign to make a permanent 29er out of my Fatty. I love it too much for that. Just trying to give myself an option for the all day long distance events in the summer.

Course the real fun bit was my wife scratching her head at the new wheelset and making me promise I wasn’t buying yet another bike to fit them!

29er+ won’t fit in the rear of a fatty but 27.5+ will & it should fit in your 29er fork too

Salsa Beargrease is supposed to take a 29+.
Nice carbon one of those is what you need.
And, a second mortgage or course.

Im not going for 29+ just standard 29er wheels sorry if that wasn’t clear. My mate has a Pivot Les Fat which is compatible with just about every wheelsize. Its a lovely bike but for me the fatty is my number 2 bike so wouldn’t ever want to blow that much cash as unlike others im not ready to move away from my full suspension 650b’s just yet!!!