A while back I had the desire to test ride a FAT Bike. I heard so much about them and just wanted to\nsee what all the fuss was about. I went to the local shop near our trails and rented\na Salsa MUKLUK. Nice bike, equipped well and looks pretty sharp. But it was a fully rigid mountain bike, and\nnot at all what I was used to. I suppose\nthe tires were to act as the suspension or at least soften the bumps out a\nbit. Still, it seemed quite a\ndeparture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As soon as I got on the bike, I could feel a complete change\nin how I was supposed to ride it. I was\ngoing to have to think about my movements. I wasn\u2019t going to be able to go\nalong, business-as-usual, and just ride. I needed to consider the handling\ncharacteristics on the turns, the straights, the climbs and just about all\naspects of the terrain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Handling: I\u2019m not sure where to begin this section? Cornering this beast was a hot mess. There is such a thing as too little air. While the shop set the “proper” air pressure in the tires, I was still left unconvinced that it was enough. At low speeds the steering fought you. At high speeds the cornering was loose and sloppy. I never felt like I could take a corner, any corner, with the same speed I would normally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jumping was fun. I’ll give it that much. Pretty stable in the air. Landing was a bit more tricky if you’re the type that needs corrective landings after a mid-flight maneuver. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Climbing: For as much as people talked up the capability of fat tires for grip, I was a bit disappointed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Descending: Descending wasn’t so bad. For a fully rigid bike. It handled the rocks and roots fairly well. At speed, it just kinda bounced its way down the trail. It didn’t bone-rattle you to death, but it never felt truly connected either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In conclusion I’ll leave it where I left the descending. In all aspects of the test; I never felt a good connection to trail. Riding on marshmallows is not what I would consider a good riding bike. To be completely honest, I felt like the bike was a joke. Some sort of clown prank, that somebody, somewhere thought would be funny as hell if they got this trend started. It didn’t ride well, it couldn’t corner worth a shit, and at no point did I ride a section of trail and think… “Ahhh, that’s why.” I just couldn’t get there. I wanted to, but never did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know these bikes have their place in the world, like the north pole… But I’m guessing Florida trails aren’t it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A while back I had the desire to test ride a FAT Bike. I heard so much about them and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bikes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dont-look.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dont-look.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dont-look.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dont-look.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dont-look.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dont-look.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":203,"href":"https:\/\/dont-look.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions\/203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dont-look.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dont-look.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dont-look.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dont-look.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}