Originally Posted by
Banzai
Ok, I'm on a rant about my Pugsley, and fat bikes in general lately, but here's something I wish I had known more about before I built one: Self-steer.
It's irritating at best, and unnerving at the worst, when, for instance, you make a right-hand turn, and during the turn have to actively push back with your right hand to keep the tire from steering hard on its own into the turn. That, of course, is after you have to fight it off its line to force it to start turning. Turn mechanics that start with force, then oppose the turn, are simply not comfortable, and make for poor handling.
Just wanted to put that out there. This is one of the reasons I think that the fat bike trend is dying. What cyclist wants to put up with that after the novelty wears off, and what tire manufacturer wants to try to overcome that, while dealing with very unhappy customers who just dropped a lot of money on tires?
I was under the impression that self steer was the bike having a tendency to turn without leaning. Or rather you'd turn but had to force the lean as it wasn't happening 'automatically' like it usually does. I had that happen with one pair of tires but after upgrading haven't noticed it happening unless I'm at 1psi pressure range.
Sound like what you're experiencing is either faulty hardware, user error or weight distribution that's way off whack (too much weight at the front wheel). Though bad weight distribution would fall under user error.
Usually with a fatbike I'll get understeer due to the gyroscopic effect the tires and wheels create and have to counter steer to prevent the bike from straightening itself. But that's normal bicycle and especially motorcycle behaviour.