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. 

Fattening Up

Going back a year or so ago I rode the Tamland Two I have with a set of Irwin Cycling wheels. GX35's, I want to say, and while they had been great wheels up to that point, I noted an issue cropping up. The free wheel wasn't engaging correctly and I experienced a few "hiccups" in the engaging process after coasting. 

It had been extremely dusty up to that point and I thought that perhaps the grease in the free hub body was too thick due to dust intrusion which might account for my problem.

I got the bike back to my shop and re-greased the hub after cleaning it out. That seemed to have a positive effect as I did not notice any problems for several rides after that. However; on this latest ride I did, I noted the issue again, and this time it seemed worse. In fact, I thought that I may not make it back to the house. 

Well, that did it for me and those Irwin hubs. I cannot afford to get stranded out in the country by a sketchy hub that won't engage properly anymore. My plan was to swap out wheels and then do something with the Irwin carbon rims and another, new hub set, But in the meantime I wanted to get the Raleigh back up and running as soon as possible. The problem is that I've wholesale swapped over to through axle wheels, and quick release is almost a dead thing to me now. 

Fortunately I still have a few options in the house. One of them found its way onto the Raleigh, but now I have a different problem! The Raleigh was never meant for "fat" gravel tires, but they are so close to fitting that I had to give it a try.

The Tamland Two with some older Roval XC MTB wheels.

The plan entailed taking off these old Roval wheels I got from my friend in SoCal, Grannygear, and use the tires that were already mounted on them which are SOMA Cazadero 700 X 50mm tires. They looked a bit narrow on the Roval rims and so I thought maybe, just maybe, they might squeeze into the frame and fork. 

The Roval wheels are pretty much a set of DT Swiss carbon wheels seeing as how they have DT Swiss spokes and hubs and then you have the Far East manufactured carbon rim with Roval stickers slapped on there. The partially red theme works a lot better on the Raleigh than it did on the Fargo, where they were mounted previously. (More on the Fargo in a minute)

Obviously the wheels and tires went in, but that rear tire jussssst grazes the chain stay where the wheel is slightly out of true. Too little leeway to play with there, so a different set of tires will have to be mounted on the wheels. 

No daylight there!

Bummer! I was so hoping to ride fatter rubber on this bike, but hey, what do you expect? The bike was designed in 2012 and there weren't any gravel tires above 40mm - 42mm then. So, making clearance for 50's would not have even been imagined at that time. I get it. And I'll be okay. No big deal! 

Okay, so I'll have the Raleigh sorted soon with a wheel set that is reliable and won't cause me any worries in the hub department, at least. That ratchet design DT uses is pretty robust. But that wheel set came of the Gen I Fargo, and well, now what to do?

Fortunately, I still had the older wheel set I was using on the Fargo hanging in the rafters. That would only need to have the cassette swapped out to what I had been using on the Fargo and to have a tubeless sealant refresh. And this is what that will look like......

Tires so fat they wouldn't fit in the frame of the image!

The Surly Extraterrestrials on Duster rims fit here with room to spare. That's a 29" X 2.5" tire, and it slots in nicely between what I have going on with the Singular Gryphon Mk3 and the other gravel bikes I own. I just need to refresh the sealant and that one is good to go. I may end up doing a little tweaking on the stem/handlebar set up by reversing the ShockStop Stem to negative rise and lowering that stem on the steer tube by a couple of spacers. 

But otherwise this bike is set for some gravel touring duties and I intend to use it for that this year. The relaxed position, Redshift Shift ShockStop Stem, and those fat tires will make for a much more comfortable and smooth ride. Plus, it can carry a ton of water! 

Anyway, that's what I've been up to over these rainy days we've been having. I'll have an update on the tires for the Raleigh soon. Stay tuned.....