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Anyone tried to race their Fatboy with narrower wheels/tires?

2K views 11 replies 5 participants last post by  new8812 
#1 ·
I was going to buy a 29er to do some endurance races, but it seems my wife's teeth are going to eat up that money. Just curious if anyone has put some narrow rims with fast races tires on a Fatboy and had a go. Even more interested if you have done that with a Bluto installed. I know it is a stretch, but the world is full of other folks who try something different, so why not ask?
 
#2 ·
Not a Fatboy, but my bike has 100mm rims and 4.8 tires. I've ridden bikes with 65mm rims and 3.8" tires and it's WAY faster. My son's 9Zero7 has 65mm Marge Lites and Husker Dus. I tried his wheels on my bike once and it was like a rocket compared to how it usually is.
 
#4 ·
Well, I am actually thinking about the Bikesdirect $250 wheelset with the 150/190 hubs. I imagine it would feel another order of magnitude faster than even the 3.8 tires when the trail is appropriate. I'm trying to put together something to try the 6 Hours of Temecula.
 
#5 ·
I JUST 30 seconds ago posted in another thread that those wheels are heavy. NOT an improvement over what's on your bike now.
If you can, look into Marge Lites, either Hope or Bike Hub Store hubs and DT Swiss Supercomps. That will lighten up your wheelset a little.
 
#8 ·
Well, I'm not that concerned about weight. I hate to say this on any of these forums for fear of extreme flaming, but the whole rotating weight/overall weight remains a giant red herring in the bike world. I'm trying to put a 2.1 or so tire on the bike, preferably tubeless, for XC race courses. Going from a 4.5 to a low crr 2.1 tire would make a huge, easily measurable difference in speed. Even if the new rim weighed twice as much as the old rim, I would still be much faster going from the huge tire to a smaller one.
 
#10 ·
Unfortunately, unless I am missing something, there is not a lot of inexpensive build options for the 190mm rear wheel. By the time I spend $600-800 on a wheelset and tires, I could buy a used 29er. Good advice though. Now I know about the velocity rims as a tweener option that might go down to 2.2 or up to 3.
 
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