thehammerdog

Anyone try the drop bar fatty set up?
i never owned or ridden one but with the gravel rage going full bore seems that a nice drop bar conversation would meet many needs?

Dr.Lou

I won’t put a drop bar on my fatty, but there are a few here that have drops on theirs. If you thumb through some of fat bike threads, you’ll see em.

qclabrat

if you are looking for more hand positions consider bar ends, Ergon grips or time trial extensions
Due to the big tires, wide bars are useful when the tires want to self steer a bit. It's not like the old fat tires but unavoidable with more rubber on the road. You could consider the real shallow Salsa drops but would never be as wide as the 810mm bars I use.

Happy Feet

Flats with bar ends.
This is the last trial ride I did before chopping down the wide flat bars a bit.

MarcusT

If you intend to use the fat bike for off road, sand, snow, etc, there are a few articles on how drop bars don't handle as well as flats, but hey, to each to their own.

thehammerdog

Cool looking bike
massive tires

Hypno Toad

I converted my Pugsley to a drop-bar gravel bike with Salsa Woodchipper bars and Gevenalle shifters.

I've used and loved this bike for countless gravel rides. It matches well with my strength and weaknesses - I'm terrible at descending on gravel, this gives me all the float on fast & loose gravel descents; I'm a strong climber, so the extra weight doesn't hurt me.

First race on this set up - 2016 Almanzo 100 - 136th of roughly 1,000 riders registered and 504 finishers (unofficially fastest fatbike)

Photo credit - TMB Images

Second fastest fatbike at the 2018 Filthy 50


Photo credit - Markmann Outdoor Photography

Hypno Toad

I'm great on sand and snow with the drop-bars, as long as it's not too technical. Twisty single-track is OK, but not great ... flat-bars are preferable.

2018 Fat Tire Loppet - 22 miles on groomed CX trails - so not very technical, except one section in some single-track trails that the skier don't race.



Photo credit TMB Images

Hypno Toad

I haven't found much tire steer with nice (bigger $$) tires. I'm using Fat B Nimble in the summer and Dillingers in the winter. The Dillingers blew my mind when I first got them - I took them across a frozen lake and dump the pressure down super low (~4 PSI), I didn't take time to pump them up for the ride home and descended a paved road at 25 mph and had no tire steer in the fast curve. I keep the Fat B Nimble around 12 psi and they handle great in fast corners on pavement, grass, gravel, ....

qclabrat

awesome pics, have you done any of the winter fat races like JP's?

qclabrat

I'm also a big fan of FBNs, light weight and cheap, everyone gets hung up on that they are not so tough, but as they say.... pick two of the three

Hypno Toad

I've put a lot of miles on mine and never had a durability issue. My one issue with FBN, never ride them on snow ... you will fall down. Every. Single. Time.

Every winter, I think I can ride the FBN for the first snow and switch to Dillinigers in a week or two - next thing you know, I'm dusting the snow off my body and picking up my Pugsley while swearing at myself for being an idiot.

Hypno Toad

The Loppet fat bike events are my favorite winter races. They've been adding races, I think there are three every winter on the XC trails. I've enjoyed a Arctic Fever Fat Tire races on Lake Minnetonka.

The frozen lake is a challenge, even with studded tires!

DarKris

I had drop bars on my fatbike previously. It's a women's specific geometry so it had a shorter top tube compared to other fat bikes at this size which was close to my gravel bike so I thought "why not?" I since shifted my use to more trail riding so I put flat bars back along with plus wheels and a suspension fork.

If I ever get a dedicated trail bike in the future I'm putting drop bars back on this bike.