Santa was kind to us this year and he dropped off some rubber for the fat bike. My Fatback currently had the stock Larry and Endomorph and one of my first mods was to switch out to more aggressive tread. I had built the 9zero7 last year with Surly Nates and was absolutely sold on their performance. The only setback was the weight penalty of all the knobbiness!
Fast forward 1 yr and there are all sorts of options for fat bikes in the rubber department. The long term plan is to go tubeless on the tires so I had to keep that in mind when sorting through the tire choices. I quickly settled on a Surly Nate up front and then decided to try the Surly Knard in the back.
I went with 27tpi options on both tires. The theory is that although they are heavier tires, they should seal up better when I go tubeless as the beads should be stiffer. I think the lighter tires would have been fine for setting up tubeless and am now second guessing my theory on the heavier tires...especially given the combined front and back weight penalty of around 1 kg! I was shocked at just how much heavier the 'heavy' tires are. The biggest problem is that the weight is being added in the absolute worst place...on rotating mass....and on the very edge of the rotating mass! crikey!
I swapped out the rubber this past weekend and went on a couple of rides. My first impressions of the tire combo were a wee bit negative. I LOVE the Nates but am starting to see the shortcomings of the Knard in snow....more to come on that in a later entry as I am still dialing in tire pressure and don't want to jump to conclusions...for the time being, let's just say my bike gained a couple of lbs from the rubber transplant....crap....just like its owner, my bike appears to be gaining hibernation weight....
Fast forward 1 yr and there are all sorts of options for fat bikes in the rubber department. The long term plan is to go tubeless on the tires so I had to keep that in mind when sorting through the tire choices. I quickly settled on a Surly Nate up front and then decided to try the Surly Knard in the back.
I went with 27tpi options on both tires. The theory is that although they are heavier tires, they should seal up better when I go tubeless as the beads should be stiffer. I think the lighter tires would have been fine for setting up tubeless and am now second guessing my theory on the heavier tires...especially given the combined front and back weight penalty of around 1 kg! I was shocked at just how much heavier the 'heavy' tires are. The biggest problem is that the weight is being added in the absolute worst place...on rotating mass....and on the very edge of the rotating mass! crikey!
I swapped out the rubber this past weekend and went on a couple of rides. My first impressions of the tire combo were a wee bit negative. I LOVE the Nates but am starting to see the shortcomings of the Knard in snow....more to come on that in a later entry as I am still dialing in tire pressure and don't want to jump to conclusions...for the time being, let's just say my bike gained a couple of lbs from the rubber transplant....crap....just like its owner, my bike appears to be gaining hibernation weight....
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