OK, here’s the thing. Last May I bought a fatbike for a laugh. An utterly ridiculous Surly ICT. It weighed a ton (OK 35lb) and didn’t always go where you expected it to, but I loved it. Other bikes didn’t get a look in as I rode the stupid truck all over the place. I kept waiting for the honeymoon to end but after a year I was still enjoying it. It was heavy though, the occasional bit of self-steer was weird and if you tried to ride it fast over anything lumpy it turned into a spacehopper on speed. I fixed the last issue with a Bluto, but now it was even heavier and clearance with 4.8″ tyres on the Bluto wasn’t great.

So, this Spring I upgraded to a Canyon Dude and reduced the tyres to 4.4″. Now I’ve got a fatbike that weighs the same as a regular trail bike (31 lb with Blutos, dropper etc) and it’s amazing. Much faster than the Truck uphill (which has as much to do with the stiffness as the weight I suspect) and downhill. Easily the fastest hardtail I’ve ever ridden on descents and the fastest bike of any sort (for me) on anything except properly rough terrain. I’ve set PRs on almost every descent, plus a few climbs and ridden it down some rocky tech that I’d never had the nerve to attempt on any other bike.

So, why am I not riding the damn thing? Why is it sitting in the shed while I reach for my old (26″) Five instead?

A change is as good as a rest.

Variety is the spice of life.

Man cannot live by bread alone.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

But also see; Gartner Hype Cycle

It relates to IT but is also applicable to other markets.

What, you’re not going to post the graph 😀

I think all that is probably true, but what’s weird is that it’s coincided with changing the bike. Surely a new bike should have rekindled interest. All last year I expected the novelty to wear off, but it never did.

EDIT: OK you did post the graph after all 🙂

I like riding different bikes. Not ridden my fattie for a while either, but that’s mostly because it needs some tlc and I’m enjoying the monstercross thing and the SS sixtypluster too much to be bothered much about it.

Ennui innit?

I normally can’t stand stealth ads, but I want a dude frame only, so drop me a mail if you are selling 😉

Ennui innit?

post crossed with your last one. A lot of the fun in biking for me comes from riding round an inappropriate bike. Your new bike is very appropriate, and arguably the best at what you’re using it for. No sense of silliness left. It’s made out of serious material by (for) serious germans. 😐

You need to sell a kidney and buy a pair of Vee Apache fatty Slicks to rekindle the “it’s so wrong that it’s right” scenario for riding the road. 😉

Moral of the story?

Weight isn’t everything. Also, Surly rock!

Thank me later 8)

Hope you didn’t sell that ICT frame 😉

I didn’t use mine at all over Winter and at the start of the year it languished in 3rd or 4th position in the shed while other bikes were ridden.

Got it out in April and casually smashed all the PRs I’d been working so hard at on the other bikes and threw in a few others for good measure. It’s as fast as **** it really is

I don’t ride it everywhere like I used to but I take it out when I want to and it never ceases to impress. Brilliant bike

A lot of the fun in biking for me comes from riding round an inappropriate bike. Your new bike is very appropriate, and arguably the best at what you’re using it for. No sense of silliness left. It’s made out of serious material by (for) serious germans.

You may be on to something there. I had similar “issues” with the Five and a Smuggler. After much agonizing (partly on here) I ended up selling the Smuggler even though it was the better bike in every measurable way.

I normally can’t stand stealth ads, but I want a dude frame only, so drop me a mail if you are selling

It’s really not meant to be a stealth ad. I can’t imagine being without a fatbike. Even if I don’t ride it much I think I’d always want one in the shed and going back to a heavier one doesn’t make any sense. But, yes, the ICT is still in the shed NM and I said the same about the Smuggler and ended up selling it to somebody after a thread on here, so if you’re after a large you could be in luck. I’m not at that stage yet though. Still trying to work out why it is that I’ve stopped riding it.

nedrapier – Member
A lot of the fun in biking for me comes from riding round an inappropriate bike

This post really hits home to me. My Surly is wrong often in terms of when I choose to use it / type of ride I take it on / the geometry and set up not being ‘on trend’ but also that makes it my favourite bike 😀

@ RP

Have you ever seen the 12 stages of fat biking on CTBM site?

Maybe you are approaching stage 12?
“Getting Over It Phase: Get over it, and quietly ride your fatbike while quietly mumbling it isn’t like it used to be.”

😆

BTW did you get my email the other day?

Loving that graph scotroutes!

Happy to see my 33 years in IT weren’t wasted

Have you ever seen the 12 stages of fat biking on CTBM site?

Maybe you are approaching stage 12?
“Getting Over It Phase: Get over it, and quietly ride your fatbike while quietly mumbling it isn’t like it used to be.”

Ha, yes that sounds about right 🙂

BTW did you get my email the other day?

Sorry, don’t check the gmail account very often these days so I missed that one. Found it now though and I’ll head on over to the Fatbike forum for a read.

No worries.

Just wanted to check you were ok. Hadn’t seen you around much etc.

Still liking my Dune. 🙂 wish it was an ICT though, surly make really nice bikes. Got loads of PB’s on descents with it, not sure how because it does everything and goes everywhere I don’t want it to!

I am cutting back on the fatty now though, it hurts my knees if I do big rides on it. An hour on the local trails is fine, 2 hours + and I know about it for a while!

Cos it’s a Five. Everyone knows you don’t need another bike (although I did fancy a Bird Zero the other day)

Applying the Gartner Hype Cycle the Five, the Trough of Disillusionment occurred when you had to fix a puncture in the wet. About five minutes later everything is good again.

Still love my cheapie dune as well.Only really bought it so I had something a bit different to ride over winter while I sorted out all the bits that needed doing on my 650b anthem.
Finished the anthem , took it out expecting to find everything so much easier,faster ,better than on the fatbike and I was wrong.I didn’t enjoy it as much either so it’s hardly been used since and the dune is the go to bike.
So why I keep looking at skinny wheeled gravel bikes I don’t know!
I suppose I could swop my dune for your dude if you wanted lol.

I’m gonna use that graph (again) in my new gig 😀

This is my fattie – I’ve been riding it in Canada for a couple of winters; now its over here with me and I can safely say its the most fun bike I’ve ever owned. It only weighs 24 lbs with its Jumbo Jim tyres, it climbs better than my Tallboy and lots of folk stop to chat to you when you are out. Its really put the fun back into riding.

My fatty weighs 34lb. There’s no way it should be as quick as it is.
As above I was expecting my anthem to be miles quicker everywhere. On a rooty climb the fatty loses out but everywhere else there’s nothing in it.
I’ve just lost a downhill KOM if I can be arsed to try and get it back it will be on the fatty.

OP, you’re obviously sick. Go see a doctor.

Me, I’ve just bought an ICT to compliment my spesh fatboy with blutos and dropper. All bases covered.

Have you considered a fat trike?

Does it matter what bike you are using, as long as you are cycling?

Not at all, it just bugs me that I spent all that time (and money) “upgrading” my fatbike and now I don’t ride it as much as the old one. You’d think a new (and better) bike would get used more. But as you say, no big deal in the grand scheme of things.

That picture above has made me think about putting the rigid (carbon fork back on though. Adding the Bluto turned my fatbike into a very capable trail bike, but maybe that just encourages you to ride it in places (and ways) where you really want full suspension (pushing me back to the Five). Maybe it was something about the simplicity of a rigid frame and monster tyres that appealed. Not sure, but it’s a thought.

I’m riding my cheap n nasty Voodoo Wazoo all the time now. My Stumpjumper sits in the garage sobbing quietly to itself.

Big ride onto the Dava moor round Loch Dallas & Loch Noir last Sunday & tbh I don’t think the Stumpie would have worked as it was so wet, loose & overgrown.

It’s a tank, really heavy going up but its a good challenge.

In the past you’ve talked about having issues riding steep, rocky, fast trails, the risk involved and the possible consequences. Maybe, subconsciously, you don’t want to ride the new bike as it is putting you back into that position.

It’s just the normal progress of the Fatbike thing. At first it’s a novelty. Even though you may have bought one for certain types of riding, you end up riding it everywhere. After a while you realise that’s it’s a good bike for certain terrain and a less good bike for others. At this point you go back to riding your other bikes more again.
If like lots of people you don’t actually “need” a fat bike then you don’t really ride it much anymore.
For me, I bought mine at the very start of the boom over 4 years ago. I live on the coast and it opened up a lot of extra riding that was either impossible or just not very fun on a normal mountain bike. I spent the next year riding it everywhere but did gradually go back back to riding my other bikes again, to the point I’m at now where I only really use the fatbike if I’m heading out along the coast.
The problem lots of people have is that they don’t live on the coast, so when the novelty wears off they’re left with a bike that’s not best suited to their riding.
Another influence I saw, was when the big players got involved and started adapting them to be more like normal mountain bikes.
Thankfully my Pugsley can’t take bluto’s and is all the better for it. It’s forced me to keep it pretty standard and therefore better suited to the riding I bought it for. I’ve taken it up Munro’s, round trail centres and all sorts of all day rides, but the truth is that my full sus does those rides better.

From my experience a plus bike is actually what most fatbikers would be better with. You don’t get the ultimate monster truck feeling of a 5″ tyred fatty but you do get the extra traction and float on soft surfaces without the uncontrolled bounce big tyres have on hard surfaces.

Thanks for all the advice. I put the Dude back in rigid mode (with the 4.8″ JJ back on the front) and went for a play on the Glenfiddich estate, which was a lot of fun. It certainly climbs very well in that mode. Partly as the carbon fork probably weighs 2lb less than the Bluto, but also rigid bikes just seem to climb well especially when you’ve got tons of traction and can just ride over anything. I was also surprised that the rigid front end seemed to give some extra confidence on steep tricky sections. Managed a couple of sections that I’ve tended to walk in the past.

In the past you’ve talked about having issues riding steep, rocky, fast trails, the risk involved and the possible consequences. Maybe, subconsciously, you don’t want to ride the new bike as it is putting you back into that position.

Hmmm, there could be something in that. You certainly have to back right off in rigid mode and maybe that is part of the appeal. I’m not sure though. With the Bluto on I could certainly hit rough sections at a much higher speed. But rather than scaring me I just got annoyed that the back end (or at least my dodgy back) couldn’t keep up.

Maybe I just don’t like hardtails. I realised today that this was my 4th hardtail (2x29ers, a 27.5+ and now a 26″ full fat). I keep going back to them because I keep reading about how great they are, but none of them have ever lasted long.

Having said that I did but the Bluto (with its orange stickers) and the wheels with the orange rim tape on the light blue ICT frame just for a laugh and thought it looked rather fun. Maybe I’ll build that up properly and give a hardtail one more chance!

Do what I did and get some plus wheels for your dude.
If I’m riding local I’ll always take my dude with 27.5+ 3.0 tyres..will go full fat when the weather turns.

Took me a while to decide which bike to take to the lake district this weekend.
Took my 5 and know it was the right bike.

Nah, I tried the B+ thing and it wasn’t for me. It’s all a trade-off though and I can understand that B+ may well be the sweet-spot for some people. Personally I just found that it was a bit slower than running the same bike as a 29er. There was a bit more grip and a bit more float, but not enough to make a material difference to what or how I could ride. A 5″ tyre on the other hand changes the game completely and does allow me to ride stuff that I either couldn’t or just wouldn’t fancy on a skinny tyre.

Interestingly I’ve just checked the stats for yesterdays ride. The rigid Dude did feel great on the climbs and I got up one that I’ve only managed once before, but on the two long (20-30 min) climbs I was actually 5-10% slower than I was on the (much heavier) ICT, which is a bit of a surprise. Maybe the trails were slower, or maybe I’m just not as fit as I used to be 😐