joco

Hi all

I would love to build a fat bike

Ok. I am a big man. 285.pound

but low budget

what reg mountain bike that can be turn into a fat bike..**********??

then into an electric fat bike?

i want o buy a used mountain bike good for my weight and then put big fat tre on it then put an eletric kit on it.



if anyone did tnat before i would love. to get info.
thanks

joco

Scaliboy62

What's a fat bike , like a Beach Cruiser ?
How far do you want to go ?
How much cha ching is the budget ?

turbo1889

A fat bike has even wider and fatter tires then a Beach Cruiser bike. 3+ inch wide tires are pretty much the standard for a fat-bike and they commonly are built to use dirt bike (as in off road motor bike) tires. The main issue with custom builds is getting a frame that is fat enough in the rear triangle to take that wide of a tire back there. Front end is a simple fork swap out but the rear is a little more challenging.

As to the OP's question to the where and how, sorry can't help with that. I know what they are though because they seem to be the "new in thing" up here and they have been popping up in the bike shops and around the local towns.

joco

what i want is truly those new fat tire bike. but there way to expensive so mabe i can build one.

ok 290 pound man
i want to be able to do like 40km

there mut be some hardtail mb out there that can take those huge. tires?

and then i want to make it electric,,,,,noneexpensiveway

budget,,,,,,,the lowes possible hahah

i simply want a clean simple eletric mb wit big tires

joco

spasmous

I'm wondering where you got the "fat bike" idea. You're not that heavy. You can buy a thicker inner tire for about $12. I did this for the puncture resistance with a standard 26x1.5 tire and it has worked beautifully. Before that I had regular 26x1.5 with slime in and got irreparable punctures about once a year.

They are a little effort to get it on but not that hard. Mountain bikes probably take 26x2 or 2.5 - with the thick tubes, I doubt you will pop those solely on weight.

troysmith80

Some people seem to not yet have caught on to the current trend of fatbikes.

https://surlybikes.com/bikes/pugsley also www.fat-bike.com


They generally have tires larger than 3.5" wide and they are specifically made for bicycles. I would NEVER buy a bicycle that uses motorcycle tires. Those tires would be waaaay too heavy and stiff for bicycle use. Not to mention the largest diameter for conventional motorcycle tires is 21" and most are 17-21".

Here comes the bad news: You can not convert any "standard" mountain bike to fit true fatbike tires. You can't. Not without cutting and welding on the frame and fork anyway. And there are other challenges with bottom bracket width also. It would be cheaper to just buy a new fatbike. By the time you buy the wheels and tires, you're halfway there anyway. Commonly available inexpensive used mt bike frames will accommodate at most a 2.5" tire. A handful of bikes may fit up to a 3" but that would be very uncommon and usually only on large travel and expensive downhill racing bikes.

The good news: Companies like SUN and Origin8 are beginning to offer pretty low-priced fat bikes. Also, Surly and Salsa and other companies have been around long enough and sold enough fat bikes that you'll be able to find used ones for sale occasionally.

FMB42

Imo, this will be an expensive electric conversion no matter how you look at it. The better known "MTB/AT" Fat Bikes run between $2 and 3K. Two speed "kick-back" versions can be purchased for just under $1K.

This and the likely need to run a "mid-drive" electric conversion kit could easily add another $1K to the above (depending on battery chemistry type and voltage). This will probably also require some "custom" or "DIY" motor-mount fabrication.

Otherwise, you'll be looking at a custom or DIY "Fat" hubmotor wheel build with the proper off-set.

Either way, you're probably looking at a minimum of about $2K (and a fair amount of assembly/fabrication time).

But hey, I really like the idea of a Fat Ebike...

Burton

One of the key staff members at Bionx owns a Bionx powered Pugsley. There are also a couple fellows around Montreal that manufacture Bionx powered chopper motorcycles.

Yup - could get a bit expensive.

magic carpet

Pedego is building a 600W geared hub-motor fat tire bike (4" I tink). It would cost less than converting a Surly Moonlander with a BionX kit. They're asking $3200 for it I believe.

BionX don't do a fat tire rear hub, so a conversion would require lacing the wheel. Finding the right spokes and nipples won't be easy either. Count on paying considerably more for the installation.

emman123

just under 2k

https://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=218...&lpid=&search=

IthaDan 

A DIY fatbike is actually a pretty tall order.

The front wheel is easy- buy the surly fork and a wheel/tire/tube. 1 1/8" steerer, boom, done, only takes money.

The frame modifications for a "true" fat bike will be pretty tough- from what I can gather most of the wider-tired fatbikes have asymmetrical wheels and rear triangles. On top of this asymmetry, the surly fatbikes run a 100mm bb shell so the crankarms can clear the chainstays. I think you'll have trouble modifying a frame to take a tire much wider than 2.5", and even that takes some alteration.

I guess you might be able to fab up some bizarre elevated chainstay thing, but you still have clearance issues with your calves.

Once you get the bike sorted out, it's a matter of lacing hub motor in a wheel.