Chuckled at this:

The only real “advantage” of my scandal was that it was brilliantly shite offroad, the only thing good about it was its badness. It made easy trails harder and hard trails ridiculous, and all trails different from riding them on a good bike.

I let a mate have a go on my Puffin for a couple of miles of downhill singletrack and I rode his 20 year old Zaskar: arse up, head down, 1.8″ tyres, close to solid Judys, v-brakes that wouldn’t even start to slow you down until you’d wrapped all 4 fingers round the levers in a death grip.

Hilarious. I think I was laughing harder than he was! 😀

I am now building a Fatty Trail for racing/fast road rides

fast road rides?

yer ok

sounds rubbish ned, singlespeed and fat…what the bloody hell were you thinking man? jeeeezuz you’ll have crap mudguards and more frame bags than a arrowhead racer next 🙂

fat bikes a great as they make stuff silly, but like singlespeeding, riding a 6″ super slack enduro sled or anything else it’s a chosen handicap, just make sure you are happy to live with the downsides and crack on.

i do love the “fatbikes are faster than XXXXX full suspension” etc.. crowd though. Under a decent rider a full boingy will always be quicker than a fatbike (although their smile may not be as big) If you can ride over something faster on a fatbike than you did on a previous full boing bike it would suggest that perhaps you were overbiked for your skill set previously and the massive tyres and feeling of stability have compensated for lack of riding skillz 😆

i do love the “fatbikes are faster than XXXXX full suspension” etc.. crowd though. Under a decent rider a full boingy will always be quicker than a fatbike (although their smile may not be as big) If you can ride over something faster on a fatbike than you did on a previous full boing bike it would suggest that perhaps you were overbiked for your skill set previously and the massive tyres and feeling of stability have compensated for lack of riding skillz

I dunnooo……..

There’s a few sections (Kevlar, 15 when it’s smooth) at Swinley I’m faster on the Fatty than either the Pitch or the XC bikes. I think it’s the fact it’s just as fast through the corners, there’s no rocks to speek of to make the suspension an advantage and it accelerates marginally better.

Tempted to build up a jump/4x style bike to see how that copes.

i do love the “fatbikes are faster than XXXXX full suspension” etc.. crowd though. Under a decent rider a full boingy will always be quicker than a fatbike (although their smile may not be as big) If you can ride over something faster on a fatbike than you did on a previous full boing bike it would suggest that perhaps you were overbiked for your skill set previously and the massive tyres and feeling of stability have compensated for lack of riding skillz

There is a short steep rocky and twisty bit of bridleway near my house i do regularly. On the ‘enduro’ bike its a good fun run where you need to pick your line as its not easy to switch due to rain gullies, on the DH bike much of its challenge is negated but the gullies still have an effect as does avoiding the trees, on the fatbike* (*with sus fork, with rigid its awful) much of it is as easy, and lines of grip open up over cambered roots or rocks that were not normally viable… of course against the DH bike the 100mm bluto loses you just as many lines

Im not skilled but it can go faster than I expected when i bought it, and it does allow the unskilled rider (me) choices they would not normally have. Riding with faster mates there are places it will allow me to keep up where i cannot normally… however these are small benefit in comparison to how much time you lose elsewhere compared to riding the same bike as them 😆

Its just another type of bike in the end, faster some places, slower others.

massive tyres and feeling of stability have compensated for lack of riding skillz

you’ve just summed up my riding in one sentence

Details set for Forth Fat Fatbike Gathering in April 22nd-24th if any of you are interested in a weekend with prob 50+ fatbikes coming and going over 3 days of riding, socialising (Free bar if Surly boys come over ) and coastal cycling that can be as easy as you want from flat beach, to sandy singletrack, or super techie rock riding to suit all abilites and fitness 🙂

Facebook page link

Or blog link to details;
http://coastkid.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/forth-fat-2016-22nd-24th-april.html

massive tyres and feeling of stability have compensated for lack of riding skillz

Yup +1

Dunno about whether it’s a lack of skills, but confidence in my fat tyres to give me grip means I’ll try to ride lines I wouldn’t attempt on a regular MTB e.g. steep, off-camber, rocky, rooty stuff where an off would be painful. For me, it simply opens up a whole different type of riding – I’m off to the Arctic next month and did loads of stuff last year that I wouldn’t have considered previously like beach rides, or 24 hour endurance rides. Still get a funny reaction from some MTB riders and the occasional knob-head response, particularly when you’re trying to overtake in a race. Gave someone the heebies in one event where most were trying to avoid the stone-chute I took at full-belt and sounded like a ton of rocks falling down the hill!

New to fat biking and would like to do a ride on Dartmoor. Are there any groups that go out around there? I don’t really know the place that well. Thanks in advance.

Be prepared for lots of chats with walkers. Had one old boy who used to off road in a land rover absolutely light up with joy when he saw mine. He was asking about tyre pressures and how well they grip. Could see him weighing it from a design point of view. I told him it was called a fat bike so hopefully he will have found out more about them.
I must get 5 chats a ride.
Rode it to work last week and the bike rack is right outside my shop door. Older people might remember when a motorbike mag parked up a Katana back in the 80s and secretly took pictures of the public reaction to it. Well I must get a person and hour either take it’s picture or squeeze it’s tyres.

Be sure to check out Fat bike Cornwall Facebook group. You can plan rides/meet ups there. Would be great to ride with like minded people.

We have friends in Crantock , worth visiting with my Fatty?

I’m actually getting fed up with people stopping me to ask about the wheels & tyres, luckily my riding pal has one too to deflect the inquisitive

Built this at the weekend….

That looks great Rick.

Looks great, I give it 5 mins ride time until you change the JJ’s unless you ride somewhere with 0 mud

No mud here RD, loads of pisted snow and nice forest trails….

Not jealous at all…

Is that blood on those pedals?

my scandal was that it was brilliantly shite offroad, the only thing good about it was its badness. It made easy trails harder and hard trails ridiculous, and all trails different from riding them on a good bike.

It wasn’t the bikes fault. Mine is brilliant with a good set of 100mm forks even with just the one gear. I’ve even ridden it to the beach, where we had a BBQ which is what you do on beaches.

Is that blood on those pedals?

Cool your jets, turbo…..