Are Fat Bikes Dead?

Text from N.Y. Roll

Ten years ago it was fat bike utopia. Everyone had jumped on the fat bike hype-train. Maybe you do not remember those days. I do, and those were heady times in the world of fat bikes. 

Remember these fat bikes? The Raleigh Rumson. Or how about the Fuji Wendigo? No? Well, how about the Heller Bloodhound, or the Jamis Roughneck? Surely you recall the Fat Cad with the Lefty fork and the Coast Bikes full suspension fat bike, don't you? 

Hmm.....all bikes gone by the wayside these days. Fat bikes fell off a cliff in terms of sales by the late twenty-teens, and by the pandemic they were nearly relegated to only the long time brands in the space like Salsa Cycles, Surly, and Fatback Bikes. Most brands who had jumped in around 2014 - 2015 were out of the game by 2020. 

Now fat bikes are pretty much gone from the performance/human powered cycling space. But they are thriving for the brands which attach motors to frames which can handle big, corpulent tires. Since little regard has to be given to weight when motors are involved, these fat bikes are heavy. Since they dominate the market, manufacturers are trending toward making stuff for them. Not so much for the human powered fat bikers. 

Try finding a variety of 26" x 4.0 tires with tubeless ready casings and fast tread design. You'll run into exactly what I mean. Lots of wire bead, heavy, non-tubeless e-bike fare. The market for those 26"er fat bikes that can handle around a 4" tire is getting pretty thin. 

Bring back the Black Floyd!

Only half kidding there. But anyway, fat bikes are not dead as in "not around anymore", but their development is non-existent. I mean, how many seasons has Salsa trotted out the exact same bikes as the year before donned in a different color? Same with Surly. 

In this sense, fat bikes are 'dead'. At least you can still get a 100% human powered one.