Fat bike has my curiosity

jonathanuk

I've seen the fat bikes around in shops for a few years, even my local Wilco Motosave has them now so there must be something in it.

I don't want to be spending a lot on this as it would only be for fun, no serious trail riding, mostly just bouncing along fire roads and the easier light trails, maybe the beach too and whatever mud I can find. I see the Coyote fatMan and Piranha P300 offerings that many of the chain shops such as Motosave and Argos are selling, looking at the specs I think they could be quite rough around the edges with cheapest of the cheap components, I tried setting my sights a little higher and the next I came across was the BH Big Foot, still looking to be at the cheap end of components but certainly not the cheapest. Thoughts on this bike as a bit of fun? It's available for about £600, more than twice the price of the Coyote fatMan, but would it be twice as good?

My thoughts really are could I upgrade the Coyote components so that it could be better than the BH for the same money. I don't want to start spending silly money, I've read about people putting together fairly decent fat bikes from parts for less than £500 however I don't think I know enough about bike components to know what I would need to buy.

Or maybe I should just wait to see if the general price drops so that I can get better quality parts on a pre-built bike.

The Rookie

Have a look at On-one's offerings as well.

Building a bike is easy, no particular part is hard, it just looks hard when you have lots of steps to take, but each step is easy!

You could try building a fat front, get a cheaper used 29er (you can do it with most 26 or 27.5 but a 29er works better) and just swap forks and front wheel assembly, a fat tyred 26" has pretty much the same rolling radius as a 29er with a normal circa 2" tyre.

warpcow

The Coyote maybe looks too much of a turd even if you added better parts. The BH at least claims to be about 5kg lighter, which would probably cost more to do yourself than the price difference between the two. It also has proper gears that won't give the average person a heart-attack from trying to ride over a speed-bump. STW also reckoned the Coyote had some made up axle-standard, which would make parts harder to find.

Other than that, agree with the above. The On One seems to go in the sale a couple of time a year for about £699-ish and represents a much better deal.

jonathanuk

Thank you for your replies.

I suppose like with a lot of things, if I aim for a good frame then the rest can be swapped out at my leisure. I just would not want it to become a project that I never get around to completing, space is very limited and I have no workbench to speak of. Buying a complete bike to start off with gives me something to use at least.

Maybe 2nd-hand would be the way for me to go with this, it wouldn't matter so much about a few scratches if it's just for fun. Will also try to keep an eye out for the BH (and others) in sales.

Just been looking at what's available in the USA now, the Mongoose Argus looks similar in spec to the On-One Fatty, though not sure what the difference is between the components in real terms, they look to be about the same level.

mattyfez

I see fat bikes as a very niche product, they look pretty cool but unless you are riding on snow or soft sand I can't really see the point.

It does seem like most bike shops are stocking them now though. Confused. Com

rockmonkeysc

They're like fat birds. A fun ride but you don't want your mates to know about it and you will soon be looking for something lighter and more athletic again.

The Rookie

I know a few people with fats who swear by them, its a very different ride, but if you like it, you like it!

On-one have an 18" Frankenfat on clearance right now, you'd need to swap out the gearing but could probably sell the new stuff for enough to do that if you wanted.http://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/YBSH53808/ ... fat---18--

lostboysaint

RockmonkeySC wrote:

They're like fat birds. A fun ride but you don't want your mates to know about it and you will soon be looking for something lighter and more athletic again.

That.

lostboysaint

The Rookie wrote:

I know a few people with fats who swear by them, its a very different ride, but if you like it, you like it!

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I've ridden a couple now and if I'm honest I just don't really get it. Yes it's amusing to look at those fat, flat tyres (even at 98kg I still only put 8-10psi in) and feel them clawing their way over roots and obstacles when you're climbing but they're just as crap as you'd expect them to be descending or trying to flick the bike through a tight, twisty singletrack.

Horses for courses - they may be great for very loose surfaces and straight lines but they're really not a patch on "normal" bikes for anything else.

VWsurfbum

I have a on one Fatty, great fun, used it everywhere, but supluss to requirements if your interested i'm gonna sell mine. £600

The Rookie

There in lays the appeal of trying a fat front first, you can start with a decent used HT and only need forks, wheel and front tube and tyre.....for less than £400 you could have a very good spec.