Anyone still riding fatbike (got an itch)

so, is anyone still riding a fat bike (on trails not beaches)

Always had an itch

Yes.

Love it as an addition to a “normal bike” – it’s not the fastest way around (not as slow as some people imagine though), but it’s just fun.

I describe it as making me feel like a 10 year old again – riding silly lines because it makes you smile.

Does attract quite a lot of attention/comments…

Yep. Got a second hand Beargrease last year. Really good fun.

Apart from snow and beaches it is never the fastest way of getting around but it is a good laugh, and can making riding with slower people much more entertaining. Surprisingly nippy on occasions, and climbs better than I expected, but no Strava times have been beaten on it. Keeping an eye out for second hand carbon rims now, that would take a pound off the weight! (Any 75-80mm 27.5″ Nexties or LightBikes going spare anyone?)

There’s a buy and sell group on the Facebook, usually some decent ones around the £3-400 mark if you fancied having a go for cheap. Like tractors though, buy one with good tyres!

I still use mine on the local single track. As above, not the quickest by any means but always fun! It always amazes me how much speed you can carry into corners and the tyres always grip. The only time they didn’t was when I aquaplaned a fairly deep ford!

Yup. Still love my Calibre Dune for local stuff. I use it as an xc bike basically which it does really well.

Sold mine don’t miss it at all.

Year 15 of Fatbike riding. Still loving it. Wouldn’t be my choice of only bike, but would likely make it to my last two if I had to get rid of some.

Bet that horse hound gets more attention than the Dune.

i also had a Dune, cracked chainstay. Was fun, agree for XC was surprisingly good but not felt the itch to replace.

I was late to the party with a 2022 Kona Wo, 26”, purchased earlier this year. As @fadda above it’s given me back the joy and fun of mountain biking that I remember from the mid nineties, it puts a smile on my face and is responsible for me getting up early and out there. I’ve got extra scars on my knees and elbows from the learning process but I’m absolutely amazed at its ability to climb. I’m now also tubeless and 1X, all new to me but it’s given me the enthusiasm to get out on my other MTB. There have been problems along the way but thanks to excellent service from Silverfish they were sorted. I’m 64 and proof that an old dog can learn new tricks!

The most lethal thing I’ve ever ridden in Surrey mud even with proper mud tyres.

I’ve a Pugsley going spare, just need to sort out photos. medium, 18”, set up single speed with offset front wheels…… let me know if it’s of interest. I’ve also got a Ritchey, which is a weird looking bike. It’s in pieces at the moment, but will get rebuilt when the Pugsley has gone. Love the Ritchey when the weather is hot & dry on local trails.

Seems like there are a few different tyre widths

I’m on 4” and have never felt the need to go wider.

Bought for the snow and beaches but become so much more.

not the quickest

Yeah, but. So much fun and comfortable too. Mine is currently on 4″ jumbo Jim’s with a Wren suspension fork. Set up like this it’s really quite surprisingly good estate road and singletrack mile muncher that doesn’t beat you up.

Come winter the 4.8 bud/lou combo will come out, forks will probably stay on – not sure.

I’ve got the components to build some 29er plus size wheels for 3″ wheels that I’ve not got round to sorting. But could add an extra dimension.

Yep, year 9 of fatbike ownership, it’s great for my local byways, bridalways and single-track and induces a big grin on every ride. I’m on my third fatty, and this ones a keeper.

I’ve a 160mm travel ebike for bigger days out or bike park days, but I’ve done SC and enduro races on the fat bike as well as longer rides. When I had just the one bike I had also had the option of a Sus fork and 29r wheels just to make it a little more versatile – but I’ve now settled on the above set up as it suits my local riding.

Took it to FoDfest yesterday, and I’ll admit it did show it’s (or my) limitations against a full suspension enduro bike where I’d had a small crash on a rooty section I can ride easily on my ebike. But I had just as much fun.

So it sounds like the full 5″ tyre/set up is too much for UK riding?

Yes but these days its my adventure bike as opposed to my winter hardtail. It’s the bike I’ve owned the longest because they are what they are, no point upgrading them like you would an enduro bike. Like a few others on here I started off with a Calibre Dune.

All bikes are tyre dependant but fat bikes feel especially so.

Good tyres for winter at 6 or 7 psi are great but feel very draggy when that grip isn’t required, summer tyres are incredibly fast at 10 psi but lethal on mud.

But whatever you choose to do it always seems to add a dollop of fun and makes other people smile.

If you choose to go for the summer option then Jumbo Jims roll really really well. And it climbs scrabbly, loose rocky trails better than anything else I’ve owned. With these tyres it made my gravel bike reduntant because it does everything better.

Mines a decent specced Canyon Dude with Bluto’s so its also a lot lighter than it looks. Its easy to find the limit of the fork but thats not really what the bike is about. I’ve other bikes for that. If I ever decide to turn it back into a hardcore hardtail kind of fatbike I’ll buy a Manitou Mastodon.

So it sounds like the full 5″ tyre/set up is too much for UK riding?

I run a 4.8” fat Albert on the front, but only because I ride full rigid – if I used a Sus for I’d go back down to 4″ or below.

The extra float and comfort of the big tyre is great, but it’s a damn heavy tyre and sometimes can be just too much in the mud as you sit on top of it rather than cut through – I’ve also found this to be the case in UK snow where id have to push through the powdery snow which was a massive energy drain.

There’s a dude on eBay. Any mounting bolts? That’s got 3.8s on

So for rigid 4-5″

I use 4.5″ Jumbo Jims all year round. Good compromise I reckon. 5″ are just a bit too floaty and more suited to specialist conditions. Rim width obviously has an impact. I’m currently using 100mm DT Swiss wheels.

Suspension forks or not? My first Fatbike was fully rigid and I didn’t think that suspension would be useful. When I bought my current Fatbike it came with Blutos. I bought some rigid forks for it too, but after swapping them over a few times I’ve retained the Blutos. They were transformed after I carried out a full service on them – better than new.

If I didn’t also have a B+ hardtail, I’d be riding the Fatbike even more often.

The most lethal thing I’ve ever ridden in Surrey mud even with proper mud tyres.

I still remember the screams from the darkness as a friend headed down a muddy trail on one at Glentress on a night ride

Sorry, forgot add, 4″ JJ’s on mine.

Still got mine..and used it 2 weeks ago…had it since 2015..ill never get rid of it…its the perfect bike…especially for the Surrey muck..I mean mud

My mate has 2 and is selling one, on one fatty trails with bluto forks

I’ve no experience of fat bikes, but did notice some Half-price Salsa Beargreases at Lyon (even bigger discounts on framesets) – https://www.lyonequipment.com/all-road

Great video of a couple who ride fat bikes. This is the same route I did on Thursday last week.

So some people are still riding fatties.

Still love my Dune, it’s parked up just now cos I broke my hands and it’s going to be a while before I want to ride a rigid again, big tyres or no… But it still makes me smile every time I ride it no matter how inappropriate the ride.

I love how different it makes trails- like, I’ve ridden five year plan at glentress a ton, I even helped build it, I know it as well as I can know a trail and that’s awesome… But take the fatbike down it and it’s completely different. Different lines work, roots that you can usually ignore or use as a drop are deadly, taking fast bits slow feels really fun and problem-solvey instead of just slow. It’s not like the difference between a hardtail and full suss, it’s a reallydifferent ride.

I’m lucky that I get to ride mine on snow about 5 months of the year, so for me it’s definitely worth it – otherwise I wouldn’t be biking much in the winter!

Definitely different to other types of bikes, the wide q-factor can feel weird at first but once you’re used to it they are super fun.

It’s also worth mentioning that fatbikes don’t all ride identically; geometry, weight and so on affect the handling just as they do on other types of bikes. My original 9zero7 was firmly in the “adventure” camp, like a Pugsley or an original Mukluk – a bit ponderous on occasion.. My Cube Nutrail is more like a XC hardtail in comparison, especially when fitted with the Blutos.

Ummm .. as many others have said not fast, but big fun.

The other thing that constantly surprises me is how quickly people who you don’t know ask you about the bike wherever you go.

If I was down to two bikes one would be fat.

James

Me too… On one Fatty, Mastodon short travel fork, Maxxis FBF4.8 & FBR 4.0. As others have said it’s great company, any time you want a different challenge or are not in a hurry but want to smile, it’s ideal. Local woodland trails at dawn. Winter mud, rides with a slower partner or pal. Snow and ice that you’re not going to do on your hardtail. All of these things.

So they pick up more punctures? And are most people running tubeless?

More punctures? Not in my experience.

I set up my my Nutrail as tubeless.

Even with tubes, less than most bikes in my experience. I have only punctured once, on different tyres in over ten years of riding.

The Maxxis are not invincible but they are pretty tough. I’m not convinced that for the way I use mine, that the tubeless advantage is worth while. All my others are tubeless but Fatty tyre fettling can sometimes be especially tricky.

@sefton, I got a few punctures early days but it was always pinches- pressure and tubes related. I think especially if you use them for a wide range of riding it takes a few frustrating fails to get the tyre pressures right, I’d think it was finally sorted then do something different and psssshhh. New lessons to learn that you don’t need to worry about with normalbikes, like some tyres are very self-steery. And you’ve kind of got to go low, or what’s the point?

I went tubeless, ime the advantage even compared to a lightweight tube is pretty noticable in terms of drag and (touch wood) I don’t even remember the last time I had a flat. I suspect the low surface pressure has a lot to do with that. But also I don’t ride into rock gardens at top speed on the fatbike, that definitely helps 🙂 I’m a tubeless fan generally but more so for the fatbike, that said I am a fatbike trail rider not a proper fatbiker and maybe the logic is different if you do mostly beach or snow riding. And it was a total arse to set up.

I use fatty strippers to set up tubeless, they make it easier.

I never got a puncture on On One Floaters or Minions. I did get one in my rear JJ on the blue at Coed y Brenin at the start of Day 2 of the Traws Eyryi due to a shard of slate but a tubeless plug sorted it out and its still running just fine.

Still riding my 2017 Mukluk. Not as much as when I got it when I really couldn’t put it down but every time I go to sell it cos it takes up soooo much space in the garage I just can’t because its just so fun to ride. Also, I’d get about £700 for it and that just seems wrong for how much bike it is.

Its had various iterations with dropper and suspension to rigid and a thudbuster. It makes a fun trail bike for easy XC circuits and a good winter bikepacker. Amazingly its not even that slow on the road when I use it for my mixed commute compared to my 29er.

Overall of the many many bikes I’ve owned this is deffo in my top 5 all time greats.

My tubeless setup was to use electrical insulating tape and some cheap tubeless valves. Getting enough pressure to pop the tyre onto the rim and seal was a bit of a problem and I had to resort to one of those reservoir pumps to do it.

If you’re gonna go fat, you might as well go XXXL

Surly Moonlander 2.0, with 6.2″ (yes SIX POINT TWO) tyres and a 9 speed pinion

At £4600, it’s a similar price to the Ti Brompton, so you’d be getting around three times as much bike per £

I have 2 fatbikes, a carbon one for summer trail duties with Blutos and 4.3″ Surly Edna’s, and an Ice Cream Truck with 4.8″ Bud & Lou for winter (sandy sloshy New Forest mud and beaches). Also a Stooge with skinny 3″ tyres for proper mud, but the fatties are the default choice.

There’s a healthy contingent of us fatbikers down south – had a meet up in the Chilterns with 7 of us last weekend, and next weekend about 10 heading to the Quantocks.

And of course Global Fatbike Day is looming now, usually sees upto 20 turn up in the Purbecks.

Got an original on-one fatty. It’s great fun but a little compromised by choice of hub and fork widths as it wasn’t the standard that everyone adopted later. I should’ve spent some cash and bought some better wheels a few years ago which would have allowed me to add a mastodon suspension fork, which it really needs.

It’s great on the beach and on snow obviously, but the surprising thing is that it’s incredibly capable on things like flow trails where it behaves like a giant BMX.