Cycling UK Forum

Spotted this is Austria last week.
Fattest tyres I've seen on a bike.

Fun to ride through 6" snow

There seems to be a trend for building fat bikes right now. Enter fat bike into google and hit the images button at the top and you'll get lots of examples returned.

I had a ride on the ICE TRICE - now they were FAT tyres!

You can buy Surly 4.7" tyres http://surlybikes.com/parts/wheels/big_fat_larry

Nokia(n) used to sell a 3" tyre called a Gazzalodi and a smaller 2.6", both were MTB downhill tyres.

It's horses for courses in deep snow,sand,mud,etc,these tyres could be fun and beneficial but TBH they're of limited use in the UK at least.But if they fit your particular remit one of these bikes could be a real boon to your cycling IMO,for me personally a 40/45mm semi knobbly covers the 5% of riding 35mm slicks don't.

BTW,I wouldn't want to pump one up with a framefit pump should you puncture

When I got my LHT frame I was quite insulted by the "Fatties Fit Fine" transfer. Cheeky devils, I thought. Only not "devils".

They work well in South America : http://www.whileoutriding.com/blog

reohn2 wrote:It's horses for courses in deep snow,sand,mud,etc,these tyres could be fun and beneficial but TBH they're of limited use in the UK at least.But if they fit your particular remit one of these bikes could be a real boon to your cycling IMO,for me personally a 40/45mm semi knobbly covers the 5% of riding 35mm slicks don't.

BTW,I wouldn't want to pump one up with a framefit pump should you puncture

A (now ex) colleague had one - and stopped using his suspension MTB, because the fat tyres did such a good job.

Also the tyre pressure doesn't need to be high, so they're not as bad to pump as you might expect.

[XAP]Bob wrote:

reohn2 wrote:It's horses for courses in deep snow,sand,mud,etc,these tyres could be fun and beneficial but TBH they're of limited use in the UK at least.But if they fit your particular remit one of these bikes could be a real boon to your cycling IMO,for me personally a 40/45mm semi knobbly covers the 5% of riding 35mm slicks don't.

BTW,I wouldn't want to pump one up with a framefit pump should you puncture

A (now ex) colleague had one - and stopped using his suspension MTB, because the fat tyres did such a good job.

I can sort of understand that but it depends on the sort of MTBing.
I shouldn't imagine a fat bike being very nibble compared to something with say 2" tyres,yes it'll roll over bigger obstacles and ride through mud better but generally I'd think the full susser would beat it for speed on technical stuff.

Also the tyre pressure doesn't need to be high, so they're not as bad to pump as you might expect.

It's bad enough trying to get 45psi in a 35mm tyre with a frame fit pump,I don't know what fat bike tyres run at 10psi(?) but there's still a fair bit of air needs pumping in one

There is a fair amount of air that needs moving, but you can get fatter pumps (which obviously make high pressures harder to achieve, but do move greater volumes)

[XAP]Bob wrote:There is a fair amount of air that needs moving, but you can get fatter pumps (which obviously make high pressures harder to achieve, but do move greater volumes)

They'de need to

These fat tyres are typically run at pressures of 5 to 15 psi, the softer the ground the lower the pressure although for road use, where they are not really suited anyway, they need to blown up to something like 25 psi.

The ICE beastie used Surly rims/tyres IIRC. Surly do a range of fat tyre levels from fatter than normal (i.e. on the Krampus) hefty chubber (Pugsley, Moonlander) (OK, my nomenclature for the labelling). The op pic looks like a Salsa on my phone screen. Not like my Salsa though...

The op pic is the new Specialized Fatboy.