Very close to clicking buy on a Fatty Trail – deliberating between the X01 and X5; with the current 12% discount there is only £240 difference between the two when factoring in that I’d order a reverb with the X5.

I’ve no experience of the 1 x 11 transmission – using Sheldon Brown’s gear calculator the lowest gear will not be as short as the 24 x 36T. I’ve read online reviews suggesting the cassettes aren’t that durable and at ~£180 to replace they seem an expensive consumable.

I guess the question is for £240 extra the 1 x 11 transmission and carbon bars & better brakes a worthwhile upgrade over the X5 equipped version?

Running SRAM GX, the cassette is cheaper than the X0/XX ones the simplicity of linear gears is very nice, the 10-42 makes for a great range. It’s also much much better than X5 kit. For me no brainer, buy a chain checker and swap them before they wear out.

You also get a reverb don’t you?

I think it’s probably worth it, mostly because I’d probably sell the SRAM stuff and buy XT.

X5 works fine and is cheap to replace – If you’re going to ride it as a proper fatbike, through all the mud and shit you can find, along beaches and in salt water, go for this.

If you are going to use it for sunny sunday trail centre blasts and propping up outside the cafe, go X01

I had X5 on my fatty, thoroughly abused it for 2 years with no issues, just anticipated replacement of worn parts.

How easy is it to go tubeless with the floater tyres and stock rims?

I went for the lower X5 model and will be replacing everything with Shimano XT when the time comes, its deffo doable to make tubeless (two mates have done theirs) but I opted for lighter shwalbe SV13v tubes with a bit of stans in them, HTH

Oh, and I haven’t rode my trail bike since buying the Fatty 😆
seems a common theme with going fat!

The cube Nutrail is also appealing with the British Cycling 10% off.

Oh, and I haven’t rode my trail bike since buying the Fatty
seems a common theme with going fat!

I’m building a trail bike after a year of fat, as it happens

you’ll be back 😉 😆