It’s Day 3 – Part Two of the Interbike rodeo championships at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. We walked six miles yesterday and we’re looking to set a new strava, personal best, today at the ole trade show. (Can you strava a trade show floor?) Much of what we saw in the fat and plus bike […]
NEWS – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Tim Krueger Announces Red Bear Products, A Wheelgoods Distributor for Kuroshiro and Bouwmeester Composites to North America September 13th, 2015 Tim Krueger announces his second new company this year, Red Bear Products. Red Bear Products will be a distributor of bicycle wheelgoods, concentrating on industry-leading technology, hard-to-find brands, high-quality […]
By : Steve Meurett It’s said first impressions are often correct, but not always correct. Mounting a new pair of tires on a fatbike and making a snap judgement on one or two rides isn’t fair – it requires rolling out on different soil conditions and with pressure adjustments to offer a well rounded opinion. The […]
I nabbed a sneak preview of these new ELITE carbon, double wall, rims, when I visited Borealis at the end of July. The spy shots don’t show the final graphics, but these are the new wheels that have been developed through a strategic partnership between Borealis and Reynolds Cycling. The official press release is below. We should have more information […]
With Eurobike kicking off today, Kuroshiro is introducing a new carbon fat-bike rim called the ensō6105. The 6 in the name is for 26″ rim and the 105 designates the width in millimeters. You may recall the zig-zag design of the spoke reinforcement area from other Kuroshiro rims as they no make four sizes for the fat-bike and […]
Back in July, I was dispatched to Utah for a mission, to document and photograph, Surly’s new fat-bike. I was also headed there to attend the Quality Bicycle Products, western dealer round-up, called Saddle Drive. After I shot a slew of photos of the new Salsa’s, I met my contact, John Fleck (special ops edition) in the Needles […]
Our amigos de Surly have three versions of their new My Other Brother Darryl (MOBD) tubeless ready 80 mm wide rims making their debut at Eurobike today. The first version is a pinned rim that comes as original equipment (OE) on the new Wednesday fat-bike. That OE version has hexagon, shaped, speed holes and is drilled to lace as […]
So you get a new fat bike as winter 2015 comes to a close and the thought is, “O well, that was nice, put it in the bike storage until next winter so I can ride it again.” Wrong homie. I took out Salsa Beargrease X01 on the red dirt bacon strip of Cuyuna […]
Chris took this shot in Iceland while on a Fat-bike.com mission to test the Lauf fat-bike suspension forks. Incredible! Check out Chris’s stories on the Lauf Carbonara Fat-bike Fork Launch and his test of the Lauf Carbonara here. Download the appropriate size and use it as your own wallpaper. Just click on the link below […]
Disclaimer: I have never done a fork review before and I run all of my fatbikes rigid. I have ridden many of the popular brands of suspension forks on many different mountain bikes. But I figure I can ride any bike part for a while and report back to you. There are few things […]
Early on a Tuesday morning in May, I got a phone call from everyone’s favorite fatbike web guru, Gomez. He asked me what I have planned for the last week of June. Coincidentally, I was just about to quit my job and start traveling right about that time. Gomez then informed me that Lauf Forks, […]
Our friends at Vittoria Tire found us a set of Bomboloni 26 x 4’s’ah, to put through our tire testing regiment. Sven and I saw these bad boys, back at Sea Otter and we’ve been waiting to get our hands on them, ever since! Our test tire’s casing measured 96mm wide, when mounted to 65mm Marge […]
Last December, I started testing a new set of wheels on my Aluminum Fatback named Otis. I wrote a piece called Otis Gets Pimped (Part 1) that covered some upgrades that we would be testing. This is the second installment, where we’ll check in with how the new pimp’n parts have performed over the last […]
Colorado Springs, Colo. & Reykjavik, Iceland – (June 11, 2015) – Borealis Bikes and Lauf Forks today announced a strategic partnership between the two companies. This relationship promotes the focus both companies have to the Fatbike category and answers continued requests for a high performance fork which requires no maintenance and operates in extreme conditions. “The Lauf Carbonara […]
Last week we introduced you to the iSSi Triple Trail clipless pedal and this week we have another member of the family, the iSSi Trail. Bike Black Ribbon Tester, Steve Meurett has a look at these versatile pedals. Pedals-sexy as the latest carbon fiber fatbike frame? Hardly. Yet, without them, you’re not going anywhere […]
By : Chris Zito Knards When Surly first came out with the Pugsley I found myself one Christmas Eve riding the shores of Lake Michigan wondering, “Could cycling get any more fun?”. Well, it has. It’s called the Knard 26×4.8. Obviously, there has been a ton of evolution in the “fad” that is referred to […]
New in the test kitchen is a set of iSSi Triple Trail clipless pedals in a fetching lime green color. The iSSi Triple Trail pedal is a fully serviceable, high-performance Shimano SPD-compatible clipless pedal available in 8 colors including our test set in lime green. The Triple Trail has a mid-sized pedal body for stability and protection […]
Being part of the Bike Black Ribbon crew has it´s benefits. Not only did I have the opportunity to ride an awesome fat bike from MAXX this winter. This bad girl was also equipped with a pair of, hard to find, Schwalbe Jumbo Jim 4.8” tires. These babies are as rare as a worm in a tequila […]
With the introduction of the Crawler a couple years back the folks at Origin8 got into the fat-bike game a bit earlier than most. Now, their new wheelsets seek to expand their fat-bike reach with a selection of affordable complete wheels. The version we have here is a SRAM XD Driver compatible version. Made from […]
Our pair of test Dirt Wizards arrived at the Fat-Bike.com – Colonel Steve Austin Memorial Test Bunker and Proving Grounds late this afternoon and all plans for launching the fat-bike.com mobile command center got put on hold…..because this is the tire that we’ve all been waiting for! You know the first thing that we do, […]
Editor’s Note : We shot the video above at interbike back in September of 2014. In a strange twist of fate, Eric Sovern (from the planet Surly) shows us both a Dirt Wizard and Surly’s five inch Knard in the video. The Knards are in stores now, and Dirt Wizards just went live on QBP.com […]
OneUp keeps on keepin’ on with drive train solutions to make your 1×11 set up more useful with a wider range and gear spacing that makes sense for varied terrain. Today OneUp is introducing an upgrade for Shimano’s 11-speed drivetrain with their new 45T sprocket for XT/XTR (M8000/M9000) Cassettes. Here is what OneUp has to […]
The folks over at OneUp Components have a couple of new drivetrain components that are designed for SRAM XX systems. They’ve identified a couple of issues that owners of these drivetrain systems are encountering and have come up with solutions to extend the life and versatility of the SRAM XX system. First up is the […]
I’d first seen the Ti Fat-bike fork from Dean Titanium at last year’s NAHBS event in Charlotte and harbored thoughts about how it would work on my personal rig. Fast forward to a few days ago and I have one to test! BTW, Dean Bikes has a new owner as of last October named Ari […]
Luckily for those of us with 29+ bikes, new tire offereings continue to trickle in. This year at FrostBike, Vittoria joined the 29+ club and unveiled a new 29×3.0 tire called the Bomboloni (Italian for filled doughnut). Vittoria? Mountain bike tires? Yep. Vittoria, the parent company of Geax, has decided to consolidate their MTB line under […]
Look what just came into the Colonel Steve Austin, Fat-Bike test labs nestled here in America’s Dairyland. The great and powerful Surly Knard, super-sized to a full 4.8 inches wide. This is a tire that spent considerable time in development, which makes their arrival to us all the more special! The photo above shows one […]
This is a short-term/initial thoughts review. I have only gotten about a month of time on these tires but luckily it was long enough to get in rides with a wide enough range of conditions from mid-winter to spring snow. This was more than enough time to get a good feel for them. If you […]
Fat-bike.com field correspondent and bad-ass rider, Andrea Cohen, has had our test set of the Bontrager jackalope TLR wheelset for several weeks now. Here is her review! I have been riding the Bontrager Jackalope rims for the past three weeks solid. Commuting, bushwacking, groomed trails, and everything in between. The tubeless ready wheel-set has served […]
Having tested the Bontrager Hodag on Cuyuna‘s red dirt single track, I was excited to experience first-hand how these 3.8″ tires perform on our groomed single track. This follow-up story was delayed as central Minnesota didn’t receive snow until the end of February. We were instead blessed with months of iced single track. Ice so […]
Our amigos at 45nrth sent us a set of these beauties just in time for a big old fat snow storm that dumped a foot of snow on the gnome-lands about a month ago. I took them on a few rides from busting fresh powder during the storm to riding some grooming that I had done at […]
ED: Andrea Cohen, fat-bike rider and racer extraordinaire (she finished 1st at this year’s Triple D in the women’s class!) has a set of the newly available Bontrager Jackalope wheels for testing. Here is here first look at these intriguing wheels! Wheel choice is always a hot debate among fat-bike riders. Deciding what the ultimate […]
As some of you might remember, I have a bike named, Otis, that just recently celebrated its first birthday! Back around x-mas time we ran a long term review of Otis where we mentioned that we’ve been working on a little project to upgrade Otis’s wardrobe. We code named this operation #otisgetspimped. In other words, we’re going to take […]
Sarma is newer company to the fat-bike scene but they bring to the table many years of aerospace composite experience along with a strong interest in fat-bikes. In addition to a fat-bikes frame (the Shaman), they also have a line of fat-bike rims called the Naran. The 100mm Naran was the first 100mm carbon rim on the […]
Seven Months ago, I threaded a set of RaceFace Atlas platform pedals onto my Fatback, and it’s probably time to check in and show how they’re holding up! I introduced the RF Atlas pedals in a Product Spotlight back in May 2014. I ride flats all year long and I’ve been kind of spoiled for the last few […]
Let me just get to the point and write that these tires are da bomb. They are fairly light (for a 3” 29er tire), the tread design rolls well, grips like a slot car in most conditions, seems to have good durability and has awesome tubeless characteristics. If you are looking for 29er+ tires, I […]
We received both sizes of the new Kenda Juggernaut Fat-Bike Tires late, last week. Our test tires are the Pro-Level 120TPI folding bead Juggernauts. Juggernauts are also being offered in a Sport/60tpi wire bead and Sport-Folding/60tpi foldin bead. We always start our evaluation process by weighing the tires on our Park Tool Digital Scale and […]
NEW SRAM X-SYNC™ DIRECT MOUNT CHAIN RINGS A DIRECT MOUNT UPGRADE WITH A RANGE OF GEAR OPTIONS FOR EVERY STYLE OF RIDING: 26T – 40T Make SRAM 1x™ even better with the simplicity of the new SRAM X-SYNC™ Direct Mount chain ring. Engineered in Germany, the new Direct Mount rings bring lighter weight and greater […]
As the fatbike tire market continues to grow, more and more big name tire makers are getting into the game. This past summer, Maxxis threw its hat into the ring and unveiled their new fatbike tire, the Maxxis Mammoth (along with a 29+ tire, the Chronicle, which was covered here). Gomez gave you a first […]
Derrick, Ross and I have been riding the Framed Minnesota 26×4 Fat-bike Tire for several weeks now with various races, trail rides and around town hucking. We mounted the tires on a couple of different bikes including a Schlick APe and a Salsa Mukluk. We also mounted the tires to 3 different rim sizes including […]
Story and Photography by Aaron W. Hautala During our previously chronicled Salsa Bucksaw test ride, part of the never ending love fest needs to be attributed to the wheels, tires, and bars (handlebars, not brownies) on this not-so-average full suspension fat-bike. Enter the Whisky No.9 – 70mm Carbon Fat Rims, Whisky No.7 Carbon No-Rise 760 mm handlebar, and […]
Way back in June (2014), I shared the installation of a Wolftooth GC42 on our Surly Krampus (Silver). It’s five months down the trail and I wanted to share how the Wolftooth conversion worked out over the long(er) haul. The GC42 has been absolutely trouble free over the course of the last five months of riding. […]
Attention fat-bike fanatics! We just received the info below from Joe at Irish Cycles in Fayetteville, North Carolina about their new Sullivan fat-bike and 100mm Carolina fat-bike wheels. Take it away Joe! For 2015, Irish has added the “Sullivan” to our line up in order to answer the question of “how do I ride in […]
Here’s the deal, in my day job I’m an ad guy. You know, a Mad Man for lack a better example. That said, if you recall, Race Face announced the Next SL cranks last year with a stunning print ad featuring a helium balloon holding up a crank off the ground. I nearly bought the […]
Last year, when venturing into a custom wheel build for my then new Trek Farley, the strategy was simple – turn this fat bike into a never ending roll machine. Good hubs equal better rolling momentum. In speaking with Pete Hamer of Freewheel Bike in Minneapolis, MN, we reviewed just about every manufacturer that buillt […]
