Fatbikes and suspension ( front and full ) your opinions/experience please

also current fork options would be helpful as may get a set …bluto’s or?
thanks in advance
Bill

I’ve got a fatty with a Bluto at 80mm on. On a trail centre it’s pretty unnecessary, but out in the Peak District it certainly serves a purpose.

Depends on your skill level. For me a set of Blutos has given me more confidence, and that’s just for riding the Ridgeway

Friend rides a Bucksaw. He is 70kg and rides it everywhere, he is based in Italy and the Alps / Dolomites are his playground.

Me, I tried front suspension USD forks and have gone back to rigid. Riding here is rooty and rocks, rigid is fine. We get loads of snow, so no suss is good for that too.

If I did go fs again I would look at an ICAN fs Fatbike, or do a lefty front conversion.

Not ridden a full fat full suss, but have put a lot of miles and terrain into a full suss Plus bike (Spec Stumpy on 3″ tyres).

The only issue I have had, and its fine once you get it dialled, is the relationship between tyre and shock pressures/rebounds etc. Same with any bike I know, but the margin for error on a plus is pretty slim to keep it ‘feeling’ nice, and I imagine it will be even slimmer on a fatty.

That said, its a total hoot and I love it.

OK I am pretty new to this fat bike thing but #itsmyonlybike.

I went out to buy a 2×10 and front suspension and success.

After a few months of riding on SDW, local trails and I am by no means a fit / racer type (unless its the coffee queue).

I didn’t need 2×10, have the 1×10 (I know how untrendy am I!) and it works absolutely fine – never going to win any races but never going to do any either.

The tyres, man the tyres, a revelation, go up anything and with a bit of piddling around to get tyre pressure to suit you a scream – I do wonder if I need front suspension at all now, not sure it adds anything and come winter I will be going rigid.

Not sure it helps you but just my two pence.

James

This is an upgrade i’m planning on my Wazoo. I’ve debated it a lot and couldn’t decide between a carbon fork to lighten the bike or suspension for comfort and control. Given that I chuck my fatty around the local singletrack like I do my full sus im going with suspension.

The current options really are Blutos, RST Renegades (no uk supplier),Laufs (carbon springs £1000+) , Wren inverted forks or the Cannondale Lefty.

Im hanging on to see what the new Manitou Mastodons are priced at b4 biting the bullet though I keep going back to the RST Renegade forks which are about £300 and available from Europe (ebay)

Met a couple of blokes riding fatbikes recently, they reckoned they were terrible on roots. Sounded like they were doing it wrong.

Hi,

Got full suss odd-wheeler with fat front and skinny-semi-fat rear.

It is total blast to ride around Peaks or Lakes. Will try to buy myself full fat bouncer as I’m loving it so much.

However I also have fully rigid almost-fat bike (3.6″ thanks to very wide rims)

Love to ride them both equally…
All depends on mood… Can ride them both same trail with almost same speed…
Cheers!
I.

honourablegeorge – Member

Met a couple of blokes riding fatbikes recently, they reckoned they were terrible on roots.

Depends really. Riding long root sections at innerleithen the main thing I noticed was the bike was basically never on the bloomin ground, I just boing from one root to the next. Which is grand til you want to change direction :lol:

has anyone see any renegades with a straight steerer for sale. if so where?
like to try some on the pugsley

Wren forks

I borrowed a rigid fatty for a bit, it was a laugh but for me it wanted some suspension forks, it was surprisingly uncomfortable at high speed.

I reckon a full fuss fatty would be hilarious, but probably overkill.

I’ve got 80mm Bluto’s on mine and they’re pretty good to be honest

Look for Maurizio Deflorian on fb and have a good look at the photos.
Fatbiking won’t seem the same..

I ride a full suspension Bucksaw with a 100mm Bluto.

Tbh, the Bluto is a bit twangy at full tilt (it’s only a wide Reba) but most of the time is OK.

Someone is running a Fox boost 29er on their Bucksaw with Nates so you could put them on a hardtail too.

Be interested if the new boost Pikes take the same wheel.

Full suspension fat is a brilliant trail bike – just a complete hoot in the dry. I rode a rigid SS fatty most of last winter which was fun but rattly at higher speeds.

Mostly depends what you plan to use it for I guess.

For trail riding and singletrack a suspension fork is potentially good thing.

If you plan to trundle around beaches, rock pools, snow etc or do bike packing type stuff then probably less of interest and possibly a liability. Lots of fat riders regard suspension forks as an evil – and I suspect they come from this category in large part.

I’m running a Henderson and 120 Bluto which I’m fine with. It’s not a sophisticated fork, but it’s nearly half the price of the ‘sophisticated’ alternatives – but then I manage to cope with a MoCo Reba on my 29er without dying / catching fire etc.

I’m curious about fat full sus, but I’m probably going to satisfy that particular itch with a boost sized 29er that will run 27.5plus as a halfway house.

Ride 120mm Bluto on fatty trail.Its great. Not ridden fully rigid so not much help there sorry! :D

I totally planned to get a Bluto for mine but in the end, I’ve just found rigid (and 4.8) to be pretty hilarious, even for downhill trails and the like. Suspension would absolutely add capability, but I didn’t buy it for capability.

Rigid Farley 5 was fun, but fast, rough sections of trail beat you up something rotten; and if you hit something on an otherwise smooth-ish trail when going really fast, you can end up bouncing from front to back wheel like a bucking bronco. 120mm Blutos fix both problems and are more funner (IMHO).

tillydog is right; a Bluto would make my fatty more capable.

But I’m minded as Northwind is. I don’t ride my fat bike because it’s my most capable bike; I ride it cos it’s just a hoot.

I started out with a rigid fatty, now on a fatty trail with 120 Bluto. Rigid was fine but I’m now having even more fun and the FS is gathering dust….

Tbh, the Bluto is a bit twangy at full tilt

It is, but so are the tyres!

I’ve put a Bluto on my Fatboy; it’s added a couple of pounds to the front but it’s worth it. It keeps thing under control when it gets rough.

If it was my only bike I think I would fit Blutos. Felt pretty wrecked when I rode the fatty at trail centres. But I like it being either hard work or rigid for different riding and making boring Dartmoor interesting.

I’ve got fox 34 27.5+ on my plus bike with 3″ tyres and there is tons of clearance i think a 3.8″ or so would fit.

Maybe bigger with 26″

Looked at photos on M D’s FB page as suggested by Rickmeister but didn’t notice anything exceptional ..nice scenery and riding …am i missing something?

Fitted blutos to my felt fatty after 12 months on rigid was great decision don’t use my old full suss anymore

One thing that doesn’t make sense to me is bouncy low pressure fat tyres with suspension.
Tyres bounce uncontrollably, does the suspension cancel this out or is it just taking majority of the tyre bounce/rebound off?
OK we can play with tyre pressures to some degree, but we still have rebound and compression of the tyre that’s not tuneable like suspension.
Would the fork ideally need to be tuned to the pressure/ characteristics of the tyre?
What would happen if you ran higher pressures on a FS Fatbike and let the suspension do the work?

I’ve got blutos on my dude, rear end suffers with bounce so I’ve upped my tyre pressure in the rear to 15psi which has helped. But may get interesting on rough ground.

You can run slightly higher front pressures when you have a suspension fork, on mine I have them both at 9psi. The fork offers more bounce and the rear hooks up nicely.