One year ago I unboxed a set of super-light wheels from three Minnesota companies that are collaborating together to create the HED Made in MN Wheelset. At nineteen hundred and seventy-three grams, I declared them the lightest fat bike wheels in the universe and I’ve been riding them for a full year now. I shared […]
I’ve been running some new Fillmore tubeless valves since Sea Otter and today’s post is about sharing a report on how these valves deliver on their claimed benefits. The video at the top of the page from Reserve wheels does a nice job of explaining the new valve design and has all sorts of nice […]
If the fat bike in your life is not rotund enough for your flotation needs and you’ve been looking for a bike with the widest profile rims on the planet, you’re in for a treat. Adding to the rich fat bike tradition of bike brands like Bearclaw, Corvus ,and 9:Zero:7, which were founded by bicycle […]
The second leg of my recent trip to the Upper Penninsula of Michigan took me to the east side and the tiny hamlet of Moran, home of Bearclaw Bikes. Moran is near the gateway to the Eastern UP not too far from Mackinac Island Ferry but far enough away to fly completely under the radar […]
I’ve had a plan to get up to the UP to ride for at least a couple of years. Ever since Jason at Bearclaw Bikes announced their drop-bar fatty called the TOWMAK I dreamt about returning to the vast Huron National Forest and its hundreds of miles of rustic roads, trails, and beaches. So when […]
The 2022 Life Time Sea Otter Classic presented by Continental was last week. Racers, fans, and our favorite brands gathered at the Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey California! I walked the aisles of the expo to bring you the latest and greatest products coming to the US market from all of the best companies. It […]
Hola Vatos and Hippy Holly-Daze! Every brand pumps out a gift guide these days that tend to feature what they’d like to sell you. It’s kind of turned the typical Holiday Gift Guide into nothing more than a sale flyer. Our gift guide isn’t a sale paper. The ideas and products on this here Holiday […]
About ninety days ago, I took the HED Made in Minnesota wheels out of the box and shared a video that promised a full report about how they performed out in the field. I’ve spent the summer working as a bicicleta gaucho and while executing the regular business of daily bike life, I imagine that […]
We recently got word that a set of Made in Minnesota HED/Berd/Onyx Racing fat-bike wheels was on the way. We set up the camera and shot a quick ‘out of the box’ video to share some stoke for what HED Cycling bills as the lightest fat-bike wheelset in the world. A sub-2000 gram wheelset is […]
A quality Carbon Fiber Wheelset can significantly improve the ride feel of a fat-bike. Reducing rotational mass on a fat-bike is more important than say on a road bike because of the size (and weight) of fat-bike tires. Lightweight wheels provide a similar feeling that you get when you go tubeless but, by my estimation, […]
I’ve been riding a set of Fatback’s Big Su 27.5 Carbon Wheels for the last month on my Fatback Corvus FLT. March is a great time to experience virtually, all four seasons in America’s Dairyland. I just mounted my third different set of tires on our test wheels to keep up with the rapid transition […]
Should your next bike have 27.5″ Wheels? Do you need to run out and trade your old 26″ fatty for a newer model? 26 vs 27.5 editorial
The Danger Gnome Podcast – January 2021
Roval Terra CLX: One Wheel to Rule All Roads
HED, Berd and Onyx Release Exclusive “Made in Minnesota” Wheels
We take a new set of Whisky Parts No. 9 carbon fiber wheels out of the box for a bit of show and tell.
If you follow the site, you may have seen Bikenerd’s Plus Bike Editorial that we published at the end of 2019 and maybe you’ve been following some of the podcast discussions that we’ve had with Adam Blake about plus bike rim width. After digesting all of that information, I decided to have Adam build a […]
An immediate difference… that’s what I noticed after installing the Cantu Rumble wheelset on my Salsa Cycles Beargease. The question was: what was I noticing? In my initial Cantu review, I touched on the fact that double-wall carbon rims aren’t much, if any, lighter than single wall alloy rims that are available and quite popular […]
It’s kind of funny that I’ve reviewed the 26″ version of this wheelset and never really asked about the story behind the Big Su Name. So when it came time to write the review of the 27.5 Big Su Wheelset, I asked Fatback’s Head-Honcho, Greg Matyas ” I’m curious to learn the story behind the […]
We’re field testing a pair of solid, lightweight Big Su 27.5 wheels from our amigos at Fatback Bikes up in Alaska. We tested and reviewed the 26″ version of Fatback’s Big Su Wheels back in 2018. You can read how they performed here. The twenty-six inch set of big su’s received high scores so when […]
I wanted to post an update about these 45NRTH Wrathlorde 26 x 4.2 studded tires. We initially mounted these bad boys on a set of 100mm rims and published a report here. We read some of your interesting comments about the Wrathlordes on our social media feed. One cat said we had created a very […]
“Its totally a thing.”… generally that is my response when people approach me about carbon rims on a fat-bike and their viability. A lot of people immediately focus on weight savings in carbon vs aluminum rims, but with companies removing material from aluminum rims, and utilizing single wall designs, the weight savings from a reasonable […]
The 2019 Fat-Bike Holiday Gift Guide
The 2019 Sea Otter Classic has become the best bike show in the US and they just announced expansion plans for Sea Otter Europe. The US version of the Sea Otter Classic is held at the Laguna Seca Race Track out near Monterrey, California about an hour drive from Silicon Valley. It’s quite beautiful there. […]
Back in January the Secret Underground Fat-Bike Test labs received a set of Fatback Carbon Wheels. What can I say? Fatback continues to innovate the market with their latest product. This time they partnered up with Knight Composite to make this glorious love child of a carbon fat bike wheel set. I was super pumped […]
Way back in December I wrote an introduction to a new wheelset and fork from the carbon fiber maestros over at ENVE. This was big news given that one of the biggest names in carbon fiber was (finally) getting into the fat game. You can read all about the M685 wheels and Fat Fork here […]
Our amigos at Fatback have followed up their (5 Gnome Rated) Aluminum Big Su fat-bike rim and wheelsets with a cross-town collaboration with Knight Composites. In addition to the shop in Anchorage, Fatback has a shop and warehouse in Bend Oregon where Knight is also located. Fatback brings a ton of fat-bike expertise to the table […]
Back in September, we spotlighted the Fatback Big Su Wheelset and after a couple months of gnome roping, we’re back with a full review. I’ve been running the Big Su’s on my ‘murdered out’ Fatback Corvus FLT – [code name: ten beers] with a set of Schwalbe 26×4.0 Jumbo Jims (tubeless). I took a […]
Uncle Gomez sent me a set of 27.5 carbon fat bike wheels recently. You can check out the “product spotlight” he wrote up but the basic stats of this wheelset are the following: Exterior width: 75mm Interior width: 69mm Front weight: 1,053g (with tape and valve stem) Rear weight: 1,164g (with tape and valve stem) […]
Back in the springtime at Sea Otter, muh man Fuzzy showed me Fatback’s new Big Su Aluminum Tubeless Ready Rim. The new rim weighs in at an ultra-svelte 640g. I’m not talking about ‘light for an alloy set of wheels’. I’m talking lighter than a bunch of the double wall carbon wheels on the market. Last April […]
“What my fat-bike did on summer vacation” Back in April, we published a comparison of 4 sets of wheels (Two 26″ & Two 27.5″ options) with the goal of demystifying how 27.5″ rims and tires compare with their 26″ counterparts. I was especially interested in learning how tall each of the four wheelsets measured along […]
We’re in the midst of testing 4 sets of wheels that range from 26 x 4.8 to 27.5 x 3.8. All 4 wheels are pictured below and labeled A-B-C & D for reference. Starting last November, I ran 27.5 x 50mm Wheelset C and wrote an article about how stoked that I was to be able to ride […]
We’re going to get deeper into the 27.5 wheel size over the next few months and the next set of wheels in the spotlight is the Pub carbon 27.5 x 75mm rims laced to DT Swiss hubs with Terrene Cake Eater 27.5 x 4 run tubeless. The Pub Carbon rims have an inside dimension of […]
My amigo Thad Carson (taddyhogg) tipped me off that he’s been running the Maxxis 27.5 x 3.8 tires mounted to a set of HED 27.5 x 45mm Raptor rims on his Oddity Cycle Lime Greenis Maximus. He also shared some encouraging reports about how his set-up handled the rocky trails near KC. (KC has super […]
I’m a convert. They’re worth the money. The kids might not have the warmest boots and the wife might not have the biggest diamond, but doggone it, I will have a carbon wheelset for my fat-bike. And this set won’t break the bank so the fam will still have food on the table. […]
Carbon fibers according to Google are a material consisting of thin, strong crystalline filaments of carbon, used as a strengthening material, especially in resins and ceramics. Google says nothing about being a kick ass rim material for fat bikes. I’ve been riding aluminum rims for years and jumped at the chance to test […]
Back in July, I began testing my Amigo Jack’s new Blackjack Fate. We published a first look about the Fate in August – https://fat-bike.com/2016/08/first-look-fate-from-blackjack-bikes/. I pursued this review to see if an open mold, carbon fat-bike could hold a candle to the performance of two proprietary, high end, carbon fat-bikes that I spent time testing last […]
Direct from the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, we have all of the freshest fat and plus bike hotness for y’all! I was going to try to separate the plus from the fat, but there’s a lot of cross-over. I saw fat-bikes that were designed to run plus and even one plus-bike that can run, […]
The winter only fatbike realm has long since been left behind-thank goodness. This is not news-most of us who ride fatties, do so year round because they just work…are fun…go anywhere…handle well…go fast? Well, of course, if properly outfitted. Within a short period of time, manufacturers have evolved the stock fatbike into a do […]
All the way back in November a fancy box of Kuroshiro Enso 685 wheels showed up at World of Bikes. The ever-growing fat-bike market is constantly evolving to fit the needs of all sorts of riders, and high end components are definitely being asked for. Fat-bikes are getting faster. The rise of fat-bike dedicated […]
Product Spotlight: Dirt Components Thumper Carbon Fat Wheel Set By Dave Krueger Carbon wheel set you say? I got an email from Sven just before I headed up to Cable, WI for the Birkie. There were certainly other words in the email, but all I remember seeing in the email was “carbon wheel set” and […]
There is hardly anything as sexy as slipping some carbon fiber of some sort onto your fatbike ride. Sure, fatbikes in the early days were pretty “big boned” and maybe not the most performance orientated as they are evolving to today. In the past, why slap spendy light pieces and parts on a tug boat […]
Otis’s Story Timeline 12/25/2013 – Otis’s Introduction and Naming – http://fat-bike.com/2013/12/fatback-190-product-test-episode-1/ 12/25/2014 – Otis Turns One – http://fat-bike.com/2014/12/otis-turns-one-%E2%99%A6-fatback-long-term-review/ 2/5/2015 – Otis Gets Pimped – http://fat-bike.com/2015/02/otis-gets-pimped-part-one-otisgetspimped/ 6/18/2015 – Otis’s Pimped Parts Review – http://fat-bike.com/2015/06/hed-rims-onyx-racing-hubs-paul-skewers-6-month-review/ That brings us to today and a story that could be called Otis Gets Pimped, Part Two! I had planned all along to apply some sort […]
In this video Andy Tetmeyer from HED Cycling joins us to talk about HED’s new fat-bike rims and wheels. The products referenced in the video are: 24″ BAD fat-bike aluminum rim 24″ BAD fat-bike aluminum wheel 26″ BAD fat-bike aluminum rim 26″ BAD fat-bike aluminum wheel 26″ 85mm carbon rim 26″ 85mm carbon wheels 26″ 100mm carbon rim […]
