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A few days ago I wrote that a 59-degree morning in Milwaukee had me thinking about fat-bikes again. Apparently the folks at Salsa and 45NRTH were thinking along the same lines.
Because, almost on cue, we suddenly have a thoroughly redesigned Beargrease, a new carbon fat-bike rim and enough actual fat-bike news to make me feel like it’s time to get publishing again.
For a category that has supposedly died several times already, fat-biking had a pretty good week.
Let’s get into it.
The Big Stuff
Salsa Gives the Beargrease a Redesign. Where is it Headed?
The biggest news this week is obviously the new Salsa Beargrease. This isn't a new paint job with a different derailleur hung on it. Well, UDH is a way to hang derailleurs! Salsa substantially changed the bike, moving to modern mountain-bike geometry, designing around 27.5 x 4.5-inch tires, and putting dropper posts on the complete bikes. More trail bike, less soft condition bike is the way I see it.
There are both aluminum and carbon versions this time around, which I think is important. The $5,999 carbon GX AXS bike will get attention, but the $1,999 aluminum Eagle 70 model may be the more interesting bike if Salsa wants to put new riders on fat-bikes rather than simply sell another nice bike to people who already own three of them. This is where the trail bike angle may be a good play. You already have a soft condition fat-bike, now rip the trails!
I dug into the geometry, builds, tire clearance and new Bearpaw fork earlier this week.
If you want to head straight to the source and start comparing builds, Salsa has the full lineup and geometry available as well.
There is a larger story here too. New traditional fat-bike introductions haven't exactly been coming at us every week lately. Salsa didn't just keep the Beargrease hanging around. They spent two winters testing a substantially different version of it and brought it back with both carbon and aluminum frames.
Maybe somebody forgot to tell them fat-bikes are dead.
Apparently 29-Inch Wheels Weren't Big Enough. I Know, Not Fat-bikes but Still…
We've been watching the 32-inch-wheel thing for a while now, mostly with the appropriate amount of skepticism and amusement.
It got harder to dismiss this week.
German racer Andreas Seewald won the UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Championship on a prototype KTM with 32-inch wheels, making it the first mountain-bike World Championship won on the format. The race itself wasn't some five-minute demonstration loop either. Seewald covered 95 kilometers and around 4,000 meters of climbing and won by more than three minutes.
Now, let's not immediately give the wheels all the credit. Seewald also won this World Championship in 2021. The guy is pretty good at riding a bicycle.
Still, winning a rainbow jersey moves 32-inch wheels out of the "somebody built a weird bike for a trade show" category.
Then there's Mason, which showed the Macro32 adventure hardtail at Bespoked Dresden last week and says rather pointedly that it is "not a concept bike." They plan to continue development toward a 2027 production model.
I'm not ready to start converting the fleet just yet, but we're past the point where 32 inches is one strange prototype. Frames, forks, wheels and tires are appearing, somebody just won a World Championship on them, and more manufacturers are testing them.
That said, don’t get too excited about fat-bike.com becoming 32inchcycle.com any time soon although I should register that domain name before it gets away!
Gear & Bikes
45NRTH Gets Into the Carbon Rim Business
The Beargrease wasn't the only genuinely new fat-bike product this week.
45NRTH introduced the Levitas, its first carbon fat-bike rim, in both 26-inch and 27.5-inch versions. The two sizes actually use different internal widths, 84mm for the 26 and 76mm for the 27.5, with both designed around 4-to-5-inch tires.
That last bit interests me. Rather than simply making the same giant rim in two diameters, 45NRTH says the widths were chosen around the tire profile they wanted with their own fat-bike tires.
The rims weigh a claimed 680 grams for the 26-inch version and 660 grams for the 27.5, and both sell for $599.
I put together a separate piece with the specs earlier this week.
Or, if you're already mentally building a wheelset:
New dedicated fat-bike rims don't show up all that often anymore. A new bike is one thing. Seeing new purpose-built component development alongside it makes this week's activity feel a little more significant.
Around Fat-bike.com
The Fat-Bike Events Calendar Is Back
One of the things I wanted to get rebuilt before winter was the Events page, and it is now live.
Rather than dumping the entire winter calendar into every Weekly Dose, I'm going to keep the main page updated as races, festivals, group rides and assorted cold-weather foolishness get announced.
That should make the newsletter easier to read while giving us one permanent place to keep the complete list.
And if you're putting on a fat-bike race, festival, ride or other event this season, send it my way. The more useful we can make that page, the better. [email protected] is the place to send info.
And Yes, the Weekly Dose Is Really Back
If you missed Sunday's restart, I wrote a little about what has changed around Fat-bike.com, what hasn't changed, and why a 59-degree morning was enough to get me thinking about frozen trails again.
Mostly, though, it was my way of saying we're doing this again.
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Events Radar
Winter still feels a little ways off in September, but the calendar is starting to fill.
Global Fat-Bike Day returns Saturday, December 5. As always, this one is less an organized race than a worldwide excuse to get together and ride fat-bikes. CAMBA already has its own Global Fat Bike Day celebration listed for the same day in Cable, Wisconsin. See the event details →
Tuscobia Winter Ultra kicks off January 1 in Park Falls, Wisconsin, with 80, 160 and 320-mile options. Starting the year with 320 miles of winter seems like an unnecessarily aggressive way to approach a New Year's resolution, but apparently some of you are built differently. Tuscobia Winter Ultra →
Fat Pursuit follows January 8-10 in Island Park, Idaho, with 30K, 60K and 200K options through the Idaho backcountry. Fat Pursuit →
We've already got Norpine, Seeley Big Fat Race, Fat Viking, Frisco Freeze and the Fat Bike Birkie on the board too, with plenty more to come.
That's a Wrap
Not a bad week for the middle of September.
A substantially new Beargrease, an actual new carbon fat-bike rim, a winter calendar starting to populate and 32-inch wheels going from punchline to World Championship winner in remarkably short order. I'm still not convinced I need bigger wheels.
I am pretty happy that we've got new fat-bike stuff to talk about again.
See you next week.
Greg
Fat Dash Bike Dot Com (FYI, this is a teaser to an upcoming piece. If you are the first to guess what the story will be I’ll feature you big brain in the Weekly Dose!)
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