Fatbike E-pocalypse 2015: Xterrain Uber Fat

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Ten inches of electrified riding fun?  That doesn’t sound quite right…

Wahahahaha!
Wahahahaha!

It’s so amazing, so fascinating, and so horrible that it’s hard not to watch.  Yes- it’s a brand new electrified megabike from XTerrain.  You too “will surely get a lot of wide eyes, cool bike and big mama shouts from passer byes [passers-by?]”- if the project reaches its Indiegogo funding goal, that is.

Check out that head angle
So much no.

Available in two electrified (£815-975 plus shipping and duties) and one luddite model, (£455) the highest-trim XTerrain ships with both fatbike 26×4.5in and ATV-derived 20x10in front wheels.  If we had to guess, we’d venture that the frame and fork were designed around the larger-diameter wheel- with the UBER-FAT front installed steering looks as though it might be… responsive.  Perhaps the independent leg movement will serve to attenuate steering inputs.  The lack of a front rotor on UBER-FAT-equipped models may or may not be a concern (the inventors recommend against speeding “on a street full of pedestrians or cars.”)- at least there’s a lever to give your hand something to do.

Forking amazing
Forking amazing

Should you have a bicycle that you’re willing to offer up to the gods of awful, XTerrain’s “triple tree” fork (complete with shock absorbers!) for 1 1/8in head tubes is available separately for under £100- just south of £150 with wheel and tyre.

Great minds think alike
Great minds think alike

Frankly, if you’re still taken by the idea of an ATV-tyre’d fatbike, Fortune Hanebrink is still building versions of Dan Hanebrink’s 1993 Extreme Terrain.  At least they’ve figured out how to connect the front brake.

sandsnowbikes.com

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Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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