so i started thinking about fat bikes and need to either be talked off the ledge or given a funnel and a gallon of the kool aid. tell me your likes/dislikes/pros/cons. i'd love to hear from peeps that have had a fat bike for a while now - especially as their only dirt ride - so the new bike stoke is loooong gone and reality has officially set in... but anyone who rides a fatty or left their fatty to never come back chime in plz.
Ok in between all the chatter here I wanted to bring this out and kind of give you some stuff to think about. In the non-quoted part of the post you mention never being comfortable and with your size, I would venture a guess that you're probably always struggled with bikes & bike fits. The guys who fit you at the shop probably have no idea what to do with a guy your size so going in for a fitting is not necessarily going to remedy that issue. The fact we have so few guys your size also makes trying another bike next to impossible. I know we have 3 guys in your stratosphere (
@bozizle &
@seanrunnette) so maybe you want to toss something out to them to ask how they approach/deal with bike fit issues and finding new bikes to try/demo/buy.
I am not going to jump on the LOVE/HATE bandwagon for any bike. What I would say if you were to invite me to be your spiritual advisor is that you probably need to try a bunch of bikes out. To me, you are saying that you want one bike to cover both Six Mile and Sourlands but to me this is an impossible ask from a single-point-of-bike purchase. Either your bike is going to do well with Sourlands, or it'll do well with Six Mile, and it'll have to handle the other park.
Personally I would keep the existing bike for Six Mile and buy a bike for the Sourlands. Because the bike you buy for the Sourlands will likely translate to CR, or really anything generally north. I also feel like maximizing a bike for Six Mile is like designing your kitchen to bake nothing but pecan pies.
And here is another reality I see here. You're a 6-4 guy who rides a 26" mountain bike and a SS on the road for how many years now? Your likes/dislikes are not going to align with anyone on this board. So even if Matty loves his and Johnny ditched his and JimN loves his but may buy something else, I don't think your preference profile is going to align with anyone here. I guess what I want to say is that you should let the opinions here add a 5-10% influence on your decision, at most. But I would highly encourage you to try and ride something for a little bit as a demo. I know, I know, getting a demo fat bike XL full-suspension bike to try isn't exactly easy. But I would encourage you to see what you can do and try a bunch of different bikes at these places and try to form an opinion that way.
Oh and buy a bike with gears for the road.
