pygmypony
Well-Known Member
for what it's worth, my Mukluk weighs about 1.5 lbs less than my FS Pivot 429I saw your other post and I appreciate the heads up. When I looked Framed had 22" bikes in stock, which according to their chart are too big for me. Anyway, I ended up ordering an RSD Mayor V5 frame/fork.
As for the wheels, @jimvreeland is gonna work his magic and lace up some Nextie rims to Hope hubs. I wanted to go with i9 hubs but they literally stopped making fat hubs like 2 days ago.
If there wasn't a pandemic and resultant bike shortage I probably would have bought a Trek Farley 9.6. With no previous fat bike experience it seemed to be almost what I wanted right out of the box and the couple of nitpicks I had could have been upgraded over time. Now with the custom wheel build the RSD is gonna come in a few hundred bucks more expensive than the Farley would have but the parts are all what I want. I don't have to mess around with take-offs, etc. If I would have stuck with off the shelf aluminum wheels I could have built the RSD for pretty much the same price as the Trek.
Through this whole thing what boggles my mind is how many complete fat bikes come with SX drivetrains. I mean they are marketing NX as the "high end" build. WTF? Academically, a major problem with fat bikes is keeping the weight reasonable. Why put the heaviest possible cassette on a bike that already has heavy wheels and tires? Is that just what's available in the quantities needed to manufacturers right now?
and to be honest, given it's slightly shorter and more upright geo, it's a little more nimble in the tight stuff...
regardless...can't wait for you to get that bike, and hopefully we'll get some more snow this winter!