Let’s be honest: Fat bikes do look a bit silly with their oversized (up to five inches) wide tyres, but they are gaining traction (boom-tish) and more and more manufacturers are now jumping on the fat-tyred bandwagon.
With that in mind SRAM has announced new X9 and X5 cranks, which have been re-engineered specifically for the fat bike.
SRAM say, “With a 100mm wide spindle and having dedicated SRAM 2X10 chainrings, SRAM has eliminated most tire-to-chain rub often found on fat bikes,”
Both cranks have got 36\22 gearing and are, according to SRAM, faster, lighter and more efficient than other fat-friendly cranks.
With brands like SRAM getting behind the idea has large rubber moved from fat-fad to big-bigtime?
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Bah I wanted fat cranks for normal bikes, not the other way around….
Great, more choice! Now we need some of the tyre companies to get on board!
Weird. It’s completely the wrong product. What you want on a fat bike is something like a 1×9 set-up (if you have gears at all — personally, if I was building a fat bike I’d start off with a SS & see how far it got me), with a single chainring, maybe 32T or 34T, + bash. A fat bike’s good where nothing else works, like on beaches, in snow, in deserts, in swamps etc. It’s not for spinning up 1-in-1 hills on made trails, so what’s the 22T inner ring supposed to be used for? & the 36T outer will be a tad big for most people, so you’ll just be switching front rings endlessly.
“so what’s the 22T inner ring supposed to be used for?”
hows about:
“where nothing else works, like on beaches, in snow, in deserts, in swamps etc”
Yup, I can easily see where I’d want a 22T inner if I was planning to ride a heavy bike through snow up any sort of even moderately steep slope. If you stand up to push a big gear you’ll have no end of wheel spin / front wheel sinking problems on very soft surfaces so surely low spinny gearing is exactly what you want.
“hows about:
“where nothing else works, like on beaches, in snow, in deserts, in swamps etc””
Yep in those alaskan bike/kayak vids posted up a while back I’m pretty sure they were running 22t (admittedly single ring) up front.
I’m guessing you’ve never *actually* ridden a fat bike Oceandweller?