Sunday, January 27, 2013

Surly Troll semi-fat bike

Could not be more accurate

Continental Slash 26x2.3 tire on the rear

Continental Diesel 2.5 (measures out to 2.7 with 65mm rims) on the front with plenty of room to spare.

Still a fair amount of clearance on the rear.
After a few rides on various flavors of fat bikes and really loving high volume low pressure tires more and more I decided to put "fatties fit fine" to the real test.  My Surly Troll is rated to handle 2.7in tires and very easily lives up to that and fits 65mm wide fat bike rims great.  Since money is tight I ordered a set of Weinmann DHL65 rims that I laced to some used XT hubs we had laying around the shop.  Despite being cheap rims they laced up pretty well and actually fit in the frame without any modifications being made, I even got to keep my V-brake studs.  You do have to put the wheel in at an angle to get it around the studs but it is more than doable, even trailside like I found out earlier today.

4 comments:

  1. Im thinking about doin this to my troll instead of buying a fat bike..how well does it do in sand and snow?

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    1. Not quite as good as a "true" fat bike but much much better than a bike with regular width tires. I easily pedaled through a section of super deep sand that a friend who is a strong rider could not even get through on a normal bike.

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  2. Built my troll semi fat in dec 2012 got to try it in snow in feb this year was great fun.
    Was impressed how it kept moving through deep slushy tracks,even though i had road tyre set up.I have pair of halo SAS wheels big apples fit great,my fat setup is a black floyd on front and a BOA-G on back.Rides great worth a try irons the road bumps out nicely too

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    1. I actually put my 2.35 Big Apples on these wheels for a while and it was a lot of fun, super smooth and stable. I want to take them down Pikes Peak one day!

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