Hello.

I shouldn’t have done it but I tested a Fat Bike at the London cycle show on Friday. The fact it was electric was irrelevant to me, but I really enjoyed the feel of the fat bike and it’s got me thinking. Looking around, a decent beast goes for 1300 upwards, then I came across the wazoo for 400 quid from halfords. I’ve read the threads on here and searched the web, but are there any more opinions? Is it really good value or just a load of old rubbish?

I think there are some owners on here so would be good to know how they are surviving.

Cheers,
Sam

No, it’s a fantastic bike for the money. There is extensive opinion on this bike and the similarly priced Calibre Dune in the Would you buy a fatbike for under a £1000 thread if you search.

I loved my Wazoo, but in the end traded it for the Dune which I felt had the better frame and fork.

Edit. This thread

Fantastic value, absolutely love mine. Infact I’ve been riding mine more than my full sus (which was nearly 5 times as expensive)
I did spend a little bit on changing the tyres, stem, bars & saddle more or less straight away though.

Sounds good. Are the tyres that bad? Seem to be vee rubber in photos. That dune looks good too but a bit more dosh. Guess the f and f and wheels add to the cost.

The tyres are fine for a start but I found that they ‘self-steered’ at lower pressures a bit more than the Kenda Juggernauts on my Dune.

The fork weighs a ton. I changed mine for a carbon on one fork which was much better.

The Wazoo has better brakes off the shelf, the Dune has better frame and fork(same spacing as a Bluto fork should you want to upgrade in future), colour, tyres and geometry imho.

Had mine just over 12 months and very happy with it, cost me £450, IMO it is a great buy for £400 before discounts/cashback.

I found the front end a bit low on the 18″ frame, which only came to light during my first ~60min ride, but at 5’10” I have a long torso and just ~31.5″ legs using the CompetitiveCyclist method.
Swapping out the 75mm 7 degree stem to a (100mm?) 35 degree stem helped loads, given the default bars are flat.
Since then, I’ve swapped to a 35mm Corto stem and 25mm rise chewy Knuckleballs.

The OEM Mission Command tyres are dreadful, at least in comparison to the 4.0″ snakeskin Jumbo Jims I replaced them with. Athleteshop were doing some great prices on Schwalbe fat tyres recently.

The default seatpost and saddle weigh a ton (~750g total IIRC), but they’re comfortable enough and haven’t swapped them out.

I’m still running the default ~1500g fork, despite having had a ~600g On One Carbon Fatty Fork gathering dust since last July!
Bare in mind the default fork is Front Disc Spaced, the carbon fork is Rear Disc Spaced, the default FDS wheels will not naturally fit an RDS fork.

My Wazoo gets a majority of its use on the road, so I find the FatNotFat wheelset a godsend, not so much due to extra speed but reducing the wear rate of using JJs on tarmac. Hoping to find Vee Apache fatty Slicks available very soon in the UK, ideally for less than selling a kidney or two. 😉

It’s a great n+1 (or even n) bike for the current price, but the Calibre Dune has advantages over it, such as easy Bluto fork upgrade and the more modern hub standards. On the flip side, the Wazoo comes with hydraulic brakes, making the default bike ~£250+ cheaper.

Not sure if there are any Fatty Trails left now, but if you want Bluto, they were the bargain buy for £1k. Canyon have recently had some lovely carbon framed Dudes in the factory outlet section for good money. Also worth scouring the interweb for end of season discounts.

Both look good and nothing else really comes close for the money. I really need to try a Fat properly off road to see what I think.

The question is, will my 3 inch 650B+ Singular Swift be good enough?

(along with Nobody I was one of the first to review the Wazoo here) I have a Wazoo and it still gets used more than my £4K 160mm FSer, but if I was buying again I’d get the Dune as it seems to be built to newer standards and outspecs the Wazoo in places. Like most owners I’ve swapped a fair bit of it, which arguably offsets the money saved (not as much as Northwind’s Dune though) – bar, stem, post and saddle all swapped for lighter and better stuff I already owned, went cheap 1×10 (STX/Zee) and put some On One floaters on (when they were £15 a piece).

If I got to the stage of wanting lighter wheels and a Bluto I’d buy a new nicer fat bike and move the Wazoo on (probably at minimal loss), but I’d be then be looking at something like a carbon Dude for £1500…

As ever, great advice from everyone. And, as ever, the eyes start wandering up the price spectrum. Is the on-one fatty at £899.00 good value? Seems that slightly better sourced than the Dune.