Let's offroad / mountain bike / mtb / ride dirt

Cannock has a very firm immobile surface, so grip isn't normally a problem.

This is true. I made it round on a rigid bike with 1.9" summer tyres and only the odd whiff of wheelspin, which was eaily cured by climbing sat down.

But fatbieks just look so cool. :(

No one there was on a fat bike, only full suspension. Why's that?

Deep down I suspect it's because Fat Bikes aren't as much fun as a burly full-susser

For trail riding I'd agree.

Acceleration is poor. At uber low PSI the tyres can squirm when cornering aggressively. Aggressive pedalling is mared by the massive q-factor.

Basically (IMHO) a fatbike doesnt react great to any kind of aggressive riding.

Take it out for a endurance ride over disgusting conditions. Climbing 12% snow trails seated. Descending frozen streams. Riding through water logged swapy tracks. Then its awesome.

To please BN.

Its simply not 'chuckable'.

Fatbike rocks on loose shale and gravel. Very satisfying descending at Brechfa on Saturday. Pretty good at Gisburn too.

I love brechfa, which route did you do?

Fat bikes is easy to chuck about and get rad with :) (spot the weight saving method)

They are way more affordable now than 5years ago, but have strayed from the path of the original design concept of a working bike and now caught up in the industry arms race of every major brand must have one and it must somehow be better than the others. Couple more years and the industry will drop them and the bikes will become more sensible again and the super wide hubs and tyres will be HHSFB in 10 years time :)

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Raven again, Charlie the Bikemonger doesn't do reds.

If you want to talk yourself into one go here........
http://forums.mtbr.com/fat-bikes/fat-bike-air-action-shots-tech-terrain-794662.html

25 pages of radness fatties

Bird Aeris is a fantastic bike, IMO, might even be getting one myself later this year. I test rode on at Swinley. It was great on the easy on-piste trails, pedalled very well on the flat (some mile muncher XC rat on a carbon 29er hardtail zoomed past me doing his Strava thing, "Excuse me please!" he bellowed, rocketing past. I had immense fun hanging on his tail until the labyrinth. He wasn't happy) and on the mini-downhill runs on the labyrinth as well as the old off-piste ragged downhills it fucking loved it.
Go book a test ride with the Bird guys and see for yourself. I think it's always important to test ride a bike before you buy as one person's dream machine can be another's mutt.

FAt&Furious race action :) (who is that.......) :)

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Did you DAS me yesterday?

I spent 12 hours in the back of an Ambulance yesterday and quite certain you weren't in there with me :)
If you did BoTB then maybe Emyr called DAS.

Hah yeah it was probably @Emyr then

Indeed I DAS'd you on the dreadful new "wheel-sized-hole savannah" section which did my back in each lap.

16th fatbike, down 5 (iirc) on last year, but not bad considering a winter of not commuting by bike to avoid illness, followed by getting I'll with cold/flu/death at the start of his month.

a winter of not commuting by bike to avoid illness

Commuting by bike makes you ill? Surely trains are worse for that??

Yes, but my commute is 25 miles or more each way if 100% bike, 11 miles of riding if using the train for the middle bit.

The van I bought for last September's trip to Spain kept me warm and away from all the snotty commuters. Much faster too.

Don't blame me.

do want

Mate, your horse tyres is....

Indeed I DAS'd you on the dreadful new "wheels sized whole savannah" section which did my back in each lap.

Hmmm yes that bit was not awesome. Come back beach, all is forgiven was my first though when I hit it on the second lap.

http://www.singletracks.com/blog/trail-advocacy/mountain-biking-has-an-identity-crisis-and-it-affects-us-all/

Got a feeling @Howard will hate that article, but it's so true. Way too much dick waving bollock fueled shite being pumped out by the industry/media.

great find

I only hate (dislike, mild irritation etc) it because there's too many words and he took too long to get to the point that then vanishes under what seems to be a general distrust of having gravity assisted fun on a bike.

Someone get that man an editor

He's right - the media puts that stuff out because it gets eyeballs, and eyeballs brings the paycheques. That stuff is the equivalent of those stupid fucking 'what happened next was amazing' 'headlines' on linkbait sites.

I don't get why he's moaning though - anyone can pick up a camera and pump out their own media - we don't have to let other people control the impression of the sport.

Not sure what else he was trying to say, the stuff about where to build jumps is US centric I suppose.