First Impressions
My new Gravity Bullseye Monster arrived a few days ago. I ordered a 20" Monster in the Pearl White color. I originally wanted flat black or silver, but both were out of stock.
The box had one corner that showed a little damage, but I wasn't able to find anything damaged inside. I wasn't able to find any issues with the paint or the derailleur hanger as others have observed. It did come with an extra derailleur hanger, which is nice touch.
I set to work unpacking everything and installing the upgrades that I had purchased. After reading this thread in it's entirety, I had also ordered just about every upgrade that was mentioned short of a new fork.
The pearl white color looks much better in person than it does in pictures, especially the pictures on the BD website. Seems a camera has a difficult time picking up on the pearl aspect of the color. I'm very happy with the color.
Upgrades:
Raceface Atlas 785mm bars / 30mm rise
Truvativ 40mm downhill stem
Shimano Saints Pedals
Control Tech Seat Post
Raceface Grips
Raceface 36T Bash Guard (bling!)
Seat off my old Gary Fisher Hardtail (not sure of brand but not original - most comfortable seat I've ever had on a bike)
The bike came with the 80mm rims (vs the original 50mm) and the Vee Mission Command Tires. It also came with a Shimano rear cassette with a 34T granny, hopefully addressing the issues others have had in this thread with rear cassette wear / failure.
Some notes on the assembly:
- The front brake caliper was loose. It just took a few turns on the mounting screws and it was tight. The rear was fine.
- I pulled the front hub apart to check the grease. It was barely adequate. I added a bit more and reassembled the hub and set the preload a bit on the loose side. The hub does not roll very freely no matter how I set it. It probably will need an upgrade at some point, but I'll see how it wears in. I didn't take apart the rear yet, but I may after my experience with the front.
- Getting the grips off the old bars to remove the shifter / brake assemblies was a bear without cutting them off. I was eventually successful.
- The stock bar is way narrow. I'm thankful for the advice on this thread to order wider bars.
- The brakes required significant adjustment to get them anywhere close to working correctly.
- The levers on the SRAM shifters to shift to the lower tooth count rings seem to be a bit challenging to get to. I wonder how hard they will be to reach with gloves in the winter...
- Final assembled weight with upgrades was 37.6 lbs per my bathroom scale.
After a few hours I had the bike together with all the upgrades. I pumped up the tires to 10 psi front / 12 psi rear and set out for an initial shakedown ride around my local neighborhood.
A caveat on my shakedown ride - I've been riding a road bike almost exclusively this year, so riding a fat bike is a very different experience than what I am used to right now.
The 20" frame size is a good fit for me (6'2", 33" inseam), albeit a tad small. I probably could have gone with the 22" and been OK. I have plenty of standover with the 20". The cockpit is a bit small, but this is probably due more to the short Truvativ 40mm stem upgrade. I set the seat all the way back on the rails and it seemed to help. I measured the distance from the bars to the seat post and compared it to my Fisher hard tail, which fits me just about perfectly, and the Fisher measured 730mm, while the Monster measured 670mm, so some 2 1/2" shorter. I do feel more upright on the Monster. With the stock 100mm stem, the distance from the seat post to the bars would have been nearly identical to my Fisher. I may experiment with a slightly longer stem if the short stem bothers me because of the associated cockpit geometry. I have a road 90mm stem laying around that I could try. I also may experiment with flipping the spacers on the stem. I left the bars at the top of the spacers for the initial setup, but I think lowering the bars may also help with the upright cockpit.
I left the Raceface bars at their full 785mm width. They are WIDE, and definitely took some accommodation on my part. I was originally riding with my hands as far inboard as I could get them on the grips, such that my thumbs were rubbing on the shifters. Eventually I adjusted, just very different from my recent experience with my 42cm road bar. I stopped several times on my shakedown ride and played with the bar adjustment, eventually settling with them tipped slightly forward to give me a bit longer reach.
The brakes initially don't work very well at all, and I couldn't get them to lock no matter how hard I yanked on them. Hopefully they will break in and work better. I did several bedding runs and it did seem to help a bit.
The new center pattern on the Vee Missison Command tires seems to have mitigated the self steer issues. The center of the Command tires has a V shaped pattern that permits the center blocks to overlap each other sightly when rolling, which I think helps the self steer issue.
The shifting seems a bit clumsy, albeit serviceable. I may not have the derailleurs dialed in yet, but I'll wait a bit for the cables to stretch and then dial them in. It particularly seems clumsy when going to the larger back rings, often pausing and then finally engaging with a clunk.
The bike was a lot of fun to ride! It seems like I'm pulling a tractor after all my recent time on my road bike
. There aren't many MTB type features around my house, but I did manage to find a 15 ft or so high mound behind the Buffalo Wild Wings that I rode up and down several times. One advantage of the shortish cockpit is that it's much easier to drop off the back of the seat for a downhill!
So far so good.
The next day I took it out for its first maiden voyage. I went to the John Muir trails in La Grange, Wisconsin. These are known to be some of the best MTB trails in the area, and many people drive up from Chicago to ride them. I rode the 12 mile blue loop, which is the most challenging of the several loops they have, albeit not terribly technical.
Some things to note on my maiden voyage:
- I haven't been on these trails during this riding season, since I have been primarily road biking, so first time on a new trail (they redo them slightly every year) with a new bike is bound to create some issues.
- I rode a 35 mile road bike group ride on my Orbea in the morning before heading to the trails around noon, so I was already a bit spent from my morning ride.
The first thing I noticed is the "Monster Truck" aspect of the Fat Bike. Rock gardens? Just ride over them, no need to pick a line unless it's to avoid the 2ft boulder. Sand? Welcome to the world of float! It doesn't seem like sand slows it down at all, unlike a 2" tired mountain bike. Climbing? Piece of cake, as long as you can keep planted on the seat and spin like a madman. I definitely think riding the Monster will help me with my spinning for the road bike, because it's by far the best way to get the heavy Monster up a hill, Trying to stand and mash just results in spin outs because of the float of the rear tires. Weight on the rear wheel is much more important to fat bike climbing than it is on a regular MTB, such is my experience.
The wide bars / short stem came into their own on the trail. This combination definitely helps with steering the heavy front end of the Monster through tight corners and to make quick adjustments while riding in obstacles. There were a few places on the trail were I wasn't sure if the wide bars were going to fit between the trees, but I never caught a bar once. Again, I found the shorter cockpit useful for dropping off the back of the seat during downhills.
It's a full rigid. This part became very evident during my ride. The Muir trails are best ridden on a FS bike because of the many many rocks and roots. After an hour of being pounded by the rocks and roots, I was definitely considering if I should have held out for a fat bike with a front suspension fork or full suspension. The big tires help, but they are not a replacement for real suspension. Next time I try this trail, I plan to lower the tire pressures further from the 10/12 of my initial setup, which will hopefully help more with the ride. The lack of suspension became most evident on a few downhills that were very rocky and often had stair steps. The heavy bike was moving / bouncing so much that it became hard to control, and I often had to brake significantly - which did have the added benefit of helping to bed the rotors - the brakes were working much better by the end of the ride.
The Shimano Saints pedals work very well, and I felt very glued to the pedals in my Chuck Taylors, so much so that I sometimes felt as though I was clipped in and unconsciously pulled up on the pedals to climb hills, only to have my feet come off
Some issues I had during the maiden voyage:
About mile 2 I noticed rattling coming from the front wheel. It seems that I had left the front hub bearing a bit too loose, and as the bearings seated they hub loosened and began to rattle. I pulled the front wheel and tightened the bearings a bit and they seemed good for the remainder of the ride.
About mile 4 the bike developed a fairly substantial creak. I had a hard time telling initially if it was the seat post or the bottom bracket, but eventually determined it to be the bottom bracket. Towards the end of the ride, the creak became better, but was still there, especially when climbing. I plan to let it settle and see if it goes away. If not, I'll pull the bottom bracket and re-grease it.
The issue with the rear derailleur engagement became quite annoying. It seemed to take forever to shift when climbing a hill, and often I'd lose all momentum waiting for it to shift and would have to stop. I learned to get into the lowest gear I thought I would need before climbing a hill or I'd have little chance of making it up. If I guessed wrong before the hill, I almost always ended up stopping.
The number of poe on the rear free hub must be about 4. It seems to spin forever before it engages, again making for issues when climbing hills and maintaining momentum with the heavy bike. As above, another reason to find the best gear to climb a hill before attempting it, because trying to shift while climbing almost always results in losing all momentum. New front and rear hubs may definitely be in order if I decide to stay with the Monster long term.
As a note, the bike snobbery with mountain bikers seems to be just as bad as the roadies. The parking lot at the trail was full of people on $$$ FS 29ers that all seemed to sneer at me on my rigid Chinese Fattie. During one long downhill, someone came up behind me on a FS 29er, and I didn't have a good place to get out of the way while doing 20mph on a downhill through some fairly tight singletrack, so I planned to get out of the way at the bottom of the hill. The person started getting angry with me (?!) and yelling at me to move over. Ugh. Sorry for delaying you for 20 seconds, buddy :skep:
I'm overall very happy with the bike! For $500 shipped to your door, it's an amazing deal, and a heck of a lot of bike. My upgrades were about another $250, but it's all stuff to make the bike more useable and I can always take them to a new bike or sell them if / when I decide to upgrade. The Monster definitely has it's shortcomings, but for the price it's a heck of a deal!
Many thanks to dirtdawg and all who have contributed to this thread with all their great suggestions!
I definitely plan to enjoy my Monster!