Fat tire bikes are misfits in the world of bikes; both in form and attitude, they are clunky and slow. Modern bikes in other categories are elegant, proportional, and streamlined. Most bikes from the last 10+ years are like the furniture you would find in a modern design magazine, where all the components of a piece flow seamlessly into each other. The backrest steadily curves into the legs, and the seat, while being a distinct functional part, still harmonizes and works together with the rest of the chair. Fat bikes are not like this; they are gauche, bulky, and disjointed. Fat tires are like a recliner from BigLots: their design is purposeful and obvious, but not elegant. While fat bikes aren’t refined in appearance, I’ve been pondering their function, and there is an artfulness and simplicity to discover while riding.
Fat tire bikes made a big impact in the industry in the early 2010s, promising a new way to transform cycling into a year round activity. Ultimately, their functionality was over-marketed and underdelivered, and their reputation has never been able to recover. Cyclists are ultimately like most modern consumers and expect refinement and dopamine releases from their bikes. With a mountain bike, for example, every rock, root, and corner is an opportunity for the bike to provide a satisfying sensation that we have been trained to crave. Our aesthetically designed bikes, unsurprisingly, ride the trail in an aesthetic way. Fat bikes have made concessions to the aesthetics of appearance and function in favor of utility, and therefore, they ride the trail in a utilitarian way.
In some ways, fat biking has more in common with trail running than mountain biking. The way fat bikes ride is slower and less momentum-dependent than mountain bikes. Especially on snow, fat bikes have a higher rolling resistance and require a more steady grind of effort to ride. The result of this on the trail is that there are not as many opportunities to coast or pump through terrain. This also means in practice that there are less reward spikes in power, up a short climb or out of corners, for example. I have found that this characteristic forces me to settle into a rhythmic, industrial style of riding which further limits the quick dopamine hits that I expect on a normal mountain bike ride and leaves me with a lower and longer-lasting mood boost akin to a runner’s high.
Due to the utilitarianism of fat bikes, they break another key factor to the biking community: upgrading. Fat bikes have one of the smallest differences in performance between an entry-level bike and the top-of-the-line model in any bike category. With mountain bikes, for example, there is a huge capability difference between a sub-$1000 bike and an enthusiast-level bike at $3,000+. The difference between the performance level of mountain bikes means that the cheaper bike would actively limit the rider not only by how fast they ride but also the type of trails that can be ridden. On fat bikes, the difference is not as stark. A competent rider could be expected to ride the same trails in a similar manner on both a budget and performance fat bike. Beyond a tire choice, there are few changes or upgrades I have seen to fat bikes in my tenure working in a bike shop.
The narrowing of the performance difference in fat bikes combined with the overall lower speeds provides a more simple riding experience that has a different vibe than normal riding. This difference in riding experience is enough to leave lots of riders unsatisfied with fat biking. However, with adjusted expectations, there is a beauty in the simplicity of it, both in the bike itself and how it rides.