prj71

I don't think anyone here is going to try and convince you. It's something you need to find out on your own.

Plus we don't know your situation:

-Maybe you are younger and your body can take a beating on a rigid bike?
-Maybe you ride all machine built trails that are all buffed out?
-Maybe you never ride through rock gardens?

Maybe you've never taken a spin on FS bike...So you don't know what you don't know.


Too many factors at play for any of us to say what's best for you. Only you can decide that.

travbikeman

I fully agree with prj71 on his answer to this question. heh, it would be amusing to have anyone try to talk a Canadian in your area that a fat bike wouldn't be good. Fat Bikes are not going to be for everyone though. Heck, for what I ride and am planning, I wouldn't waste my money on one and frankly, no one would ever be able to talk me into a fat bike. It would be a complete waste of my money.

I do enjoy my hardtail and it was nice how my teenage son and I worked on upgrades for fun of it. Great for nicely groomed trails and soon for bike packing. But I bought a FS to start tackling trails like this new one in my local state park:


Check out after the 6 minute time period. Yea, my son and I looked at this new trail with our hard tails and were like forget about it! Fat Bike on this, yea...no....

Other trails in this state park, yea fat bikes would be ok, heck, there are some true craziness from people using gravel bikes on some trails in this park......

Edit: Also bought the FS to start joining up some bike clubs in the local area to go riding with others in my age group.

prj71

^^^Those rock features would so suck on a rigid. I've tried that stuff on a rigid already. Never again.

Nice video!!

Kapusta

If you ride really smooth trails or you don't care about control at speed on rough ones.... guess I don't have much to say.

Viich

I'm 43. Is that younger? Younger is relative.
Never been on a machine built trail
I'll put these two together - I do, and I have. That's actually what scared the bejesus out of me with suspension. I rented a full-suspension at Whistler 12 years ago, misread a trail map and ended up entering a rock garden at stupid speed. Was mentally ready for severe injury type speed. Went to full soft legs and arms to try to absorb everything - and the bike did it all. I feel like if I rode full suspension I'd kill or maim myself fairly quickly by taking things faster and faster or doing bigger and bigger things to keep interesting. Doing a blue MTB trail on a cyclocross bike is pretty challenging to the bike handling skills, very interesting, and pretty safe. Doing a harder trail at 3 times the speed on a super-capable modern bike - probably equally challenging, but consequences way higher.

The fat bike is new to me, actually, and probably going to bring me back to riding more trails, as it has enough squish and width to ride modern trails (CX bike doesn't for many of them), but still slow negotiation of some stuff.

Viich

I'd flip your signature and say that gravel bikes are mountain bikes that don't suck. (Or squish maybe?)

Kapusta

Well if you want to flip that around… Gravel bikes are mountain bikes that suck at being mountain bikes.