Written by Trystan Herriott 11 June 2013 A fine day on the trail with the Hogback, with sun and sundogs and at times 35° F below zero with wind-chill. A backcountry cabin awaited my fellow travelers and me at the end of the day, and was a welcome site after a 30-mile ride in the [...]
We started hearing rumors about Surly’s new 29+ bike about this time last year and by the time Interbike rolled around we were all frothing at the mouths in anticipation of getting a chance to throw a leg over one and take it for a ride. If you haven’t heard…..Twenty-Nine Plus is an expansion of [...]
A brand new fat bike-dedicated brand, Borealis Bikes has introduced a sleek and extremely light carbon fiber frame and fork to the fat bike world. Borealis Bikes, a subsidiary of The Fat Bike Company, identified their first bike as the YAMPA. Company founders stated their goal was simply to have the best and lightest Fat [...]
Written by : Andy Oleson I’ve been able to log some decent single track mileage on my 29+ wheelset up at the Southern Kettle trail system, and have done some side by side comparison testing, swapping wheelsets between laps, and one thing is for sure, the 29+ Rabbit Hole/Knards are faster than the 26” Darryl/HuskerDu [...]
Mi primo y Bike Black Ribbon Test Pilot, Cale built up a set of offset Rabbit Hole rims for his Pugsley, last week and today he shared his initial impressions along with time/speed comparisons to both his 29r and his pug with traditional fat bike wheels. He rode his local 30 mile pavement/dirt loop out in [...]
We’ve got big plans for the 29r+ platform this summer! The Spinner Ryerson is currently testing the hell out of his Krampus. We’re just about ready to start building up a Krampus with all sorts of shiney bits for ‘yours truely’, while Bike Black Ribbon Test Pilot, Angry Andy has already been testing a set of [...]
My man, Beeker told me that he has been seeing some snaps of a euro fat-bike around the fringes of the intertwebs, so I searched a little and came up with this interesting video. The Diamant and Nakamura fat-bike is the same ride with different decals. The shops that sell them in Norway (G-Sport and [...]
Patrice Drouin spent 20 years as a designer in the auto industry in France before focusing his vision on making quality custom bicycles. He started Vagabonde Cycles in 2008 and since then has crafted more than 200 bikes. We feel fortunate today, because we get to share Vagabonde Cycles very first Fat-Bike. Patrice designed his [...]
Editor’s Note – We’re back with part 2 of the Walgoose challenge. In Part 1, we took it out of the box and rode it in its stock form and man was that form bad! So where do we go from here? We rebuild it of course. DIY guy and Fat-bike.com test pilot Cale breaks out [...]
Earlier this year, 9:ZERO:7 and Fallbrook Technologies Inc. announced the 2013 Tusken. The Tusken is one of a growing list of fat-bikes to pair Fallbrook’s continuously variable NuVinci N360 transmission with the Gates Carbon Drive CenterTrack™ Belt Drive System. The NuVinci N360 is the latest generation of Fallbrook’s award-winning continuously variable planetary (CVP) transmission for bicycles. The [...]
Editor’s Note: After seeing the truly insane hubbub the Walmart fatbike (henceforth referred to as the WalGoose) generated on MTBR, Test Pilot Cale had to have one. So an order was placed and $215 later a green Walgoose was on it’s way to his doorstep. What follows are some initial impressions and a Challenge. I got my Walgoose on Friday in [...]
Our neighbor, from across Lake Michigan, Mr. Scott Quiring of Quiring Cycles just finished up this whee KVA stainless, Gates belt drive fat bike with a NuVinci n 360 hub in his Free Soil, Michigan, bicycle laboratory. Scott machined a 35 mm spacer on the non-drive side to convert the frame spacing from 170 [...]
Now arriving at bike shops around the country is Origin-8 Crawler fat-bike. The Crawler uses a hydroformed aluminum frame coupled to a NuVinci N360 continuously variable rear hub to give you a shift free 360% range of gearing. The venerable Avid BB7 Disc brakes provide stopping power. Tires are Origin-8 Devit-8-ers on Origin-8 80mm AT-PRo [...]
Show Coverage by James Healy Twenty Two Cycles Ti & Steel Bully 38 Frameworks Carbon Hogback and Aluminum Jakelope Funk 29+ Front and Fat Rear AMPeirce Overlander – 29+ or 4″ fatty compliant Tandem Black Sheep Fat Cargo Blacksheep Dually Fat – Note the Wolf Tooth Chain-ring Blacksheep 29+ Tandem Jen Green Custom Headbadge on [...]
Salsa’s Carbon Beargrease The bike we all came to look at was not out on the show floor. Salsa’s, Mike Reimer, led me back behind some of the display booths and down a narrow passage to a locked windowless office, where only a few lucky folks got to see something that is going to blow [...]
16″ (small) - 18″ (medium) - 20″ (large) -14″ and 22″ are also available. I’ve been trading emails with my Aussie amigos for the last 5 or 6 months about their new Fat-Bike company called MURU Cycles. “Muru” means, “the path”. Muru cycles plans to embrace the feeling of freedom and adventure, that ‘the path’ invokes, with [...]
Thierry from Bike-A-Lot in France has been working with Yann from Salamandre (We’ve done a couple of other stories on Salalmandre here and here) to build a really sweet fat-bike! Thierry translated his report that was originally in French so all you fine people could see what fat-biking is looking like in France! Enjoy! Direct [...]
We received some Holiday Greetings from our amigo, Scott Quiring along with some pictures of a couple of fat-bikes that he’s been working on in December. We featured a Builder Profile on Quiring Cycles last April. Here’s some great news for you Ti fans out there, Scott tells us that he’s currently working on creating [...]
I love this bike. I went out to Vegas just to ride it. Of course there were beers and friends that I only see about once a year, and more beers, but this conglomeration of steel and rubber was the focus of my trip. I was pretty sure I was going to get one, but [...]
We’ve been messing about with custom-cut Vinyl from our buddy Corey to enhance fat-bike rims and personalize your ride. This Pugsley was built to showcase the rims and so we could get some good photos of the concept and to test the durability. More on the long-term prospects down the road. This is still largely [...]
Hot News from the Winter Bike Expo in Minneapolis! Kevin Ishang., owner of Freewheel Bike, announced the founding of a new fat-bike company called appropriately, the Minneapolis Bike Company. We were then treated to the unveiling of their new, fresh from the skunk works ‘Murphy’ full carbon Fat-Bike prototype. The Murphy features raised chainstays [...]
Vibe Cycles out in Boise Idaho first popped up on our fat-bike radar with a bamboo fatty that was spied at the North American Hand Built Bicycle Show last March. Dave and Christi, from Vibe, have been keeping in touch, with us, and contacted me a few weeks ago, about their new custom hydro-formed aluminum fat-bike, called….the [...]
Greg from Schlick Cycles sent us these photos of a custom-built Northpaw fat-bike with a Gates Belt Drive, a Rohloff Speedhub and a SRAM Dyno front hub that they built for a rider in Eastern Michigan. Initial reports from the owner are very favorable and, as with all fat-bikes, he is amazed at the number [...]
The New! 38 Frameworks ‘Hogback’ Full Carbon Fat-Bike! 38 Frameworks announces their new Hogback! The first production Full-Carbon Fat-Bike! This weekend at the Iceman Cometh Challenge near Traverse City, Michigan – 38 frameworks will unveil the very first pair of carbon fiber ‘Hogback’ fat-bikes to the cycling world! The Hogback is hand made in Colorado. [...]
Black Sheep Bikes is located in Fort Collins, Colorado and is well known for their titanium, rolling, works of art. We contacted BSB and asked if we could feature one of their fat-bikes for our readers and Todd sent us these stunning shots of their current ‘shop bike’. The bike is called Two Face and [...]
One of the happy denizens the Surly Empire happens to live not to far from me over in Decorah, IA. He also happens to be a giant, like me! Aaand, it so happens that he just took delivery of his very own special Krampus! Joy! So I says, can I ride it? Sure! Says the [...]
This is Andrew Watson’s latest Great Divide fat-bike and that yellow is absolutely stunning! We’ve featured Andrew Watson’s work in the past and even had a great interview with him so give those a look too.
We recently shot off a note to Conrad at Sandman Bikes in Belgium to learn about their plans for the 2013 model year. Sandman, as you many know, is a maker of fat-bikes that are geared towards the all season fatbike crowd. Their bikes have had front suspension for several years now as well as [...]
Here’s the rest of what I collected, while working the show today. Surly Rubber Tree I revisited the production sample of the new Krampus and took some detailed shots for y’all. The Krampus demo fleet is rocking a 3rd generation prototype yolk, so all of the photos that you’ve seen before this are not exactly what you’ll [...]
Sven has been here before, but today was my first time in the maze called Interbike. We popped my interbike cherry today, to bring you all of the fat…all of the time! Just like we promised! Phil Wood fat-bike design exercise! Custom Fork crowns on the Manitou Fork. 185mm Cassette Hub. Also available in lower [...]
Jeroen’s Custom FatTi BR - by Jeroen Oomkens A short introduction of the builder of this bike, he’s a guy from the Netherlands, and yes, that’s the country which is really flat. So why go fat? He got a fancy for engineering and he likes his bikes. It started two years ago with his very first [...]
Here’s a reader’s ride - slash review – slash bed-time story, from one of my ride buddies that I started riding with, back when Cannondale’s mtb’s used to have 24″ rear wheels (over 25 years ago). Andy was always a pain in the ass to go riding with, because he was so f’ing fast and [...]
Yann from Salemandre Cycles just sent us a shot of a Fat-Packing Experimental Prototype that he’ll be personally testing on a 3 day trip this week. Look for a full report coming soon!
We just returned from another Michigan beach riding excursion, where we were treated to a sneak peak of 616′s new fat tandem. Talk about an attention getter! Aaron Joppe, from 616, was kind enough to bring out this work of art, so we could get a few impromptu photos before we all headed out for a [...]
It seems in some ways like I’ve had this bike forever, but yet, the first time it hit the trail was early December, just six months ago. The Mukluk 2 somehow has become my defacto mountain bike. I’ve come to believe that this fat bike is what all other mountain bikes, really want to be [...]
Finally it’s time to introduce some of the fatbikes found here in Finland. There are probably close to 50 fatbikes in all, and quite many of the owners are active in the Finnish bicycling forum, www.fillarifoorumi.fi. We have our own conversation thread for fatbikes, called ‘The Official™ fatbike-thread’. Here is a selection of some of [...]
The next stop on my Michigan trip is Ludington. Ludington State Park features 12 miles of beach just north of the town of the same name along the shores of Lake Michigan. I chose Ludington as the furthest north that I would explore on this trip. Cecil and I rolled in and found the park [...]
I started riding fat-bikes on a Pugsley, gifted to me for my 50th birthday and then last December I got a Moonlander complete. I haven’t ridden the Pugsley since getting my Moonlander, so I’m contemplating selling it. But first, I’d like to hear from our readers on the subject of Pugs vs Moonie. I [...]
Here’s a brilliant video from from the first day of spring…..two years ago. It was shot by the most talented fat-bike videographer that I’ve ever encountered – tscheezy
I met up with Scott Quiring at his Free Soil, shop late on a Friday afternoon, on a recent whirlwind tour of the Michigan’s mitten. Scott and I had been trading emails over the winter, where he sent me a few snaps of his personal stainless steel, singlespeed belt drive fat-bike. Scott’s shop is on [...]
A little fat-bike southern cooking for you from our Asheville, Norte del Carolina correspondant ~ Katy Snaks! While it’s fantastic that some cyclists enjoy hacking through the wilderness or tackling long races on their fat-bikes, that’s not quite my natural inclination. When charged with writing an article for fat-bike.com, it took a few minutes to [...]
To give you an idea of how compact the world of fat bikes is, I met the owner of A-Train Cycles, Alex Cook, a few years ago, when I became his very first customer by purchasing a custom porteur front rack for my pugsley. Back then, Alex was working for a bike shop and welded [...]
Great minds from two iconic Michigami MTB Brands joined forces to form 616 Bicycle Fabrication last July. John Muezenmeyer , founder of Nuke Proof, and Aaron Joppe of Slingshot bicycles wanted to create a hand-built-in-the-mitten bicycle company that leverages the manufacturing might of western Michigan. 616 makes fat-bike frames, forks, hubs, and soon they’ll have their [...]
On our trip up to Minneapolis last month we spied this Ti Fatback with it’s carbon fork and the signature twisted downtube of a Lynsky fab’d frame and we knew that we wanted to talk to it’s owner. This sweet scooter is owned by elite racer and ex motocross pro, Jeff Colbert of North Branch [...]
