Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Pringle
Appreciate your perspective, but you lost me on your last sentence. Since you have firsthand knowledge of bike design, could you please elaborate?
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So tyres rely on hysteresis in the rubber of the tyre in order to provide some sort of damping. Lighter tyres (less rubber and generally former compounds for efficiency) have less damping and feel more sketchy than heavy tyres. Think of the muted ride quality of DH tyres, Vs xc tyres pinging and skipping along the trail. For normal size tyres (2.3-2.4" ish) we can generally strike a decent balance between weight and drag and grip and damping. But the larger the tyre, the more that has to be skewed towards light weight in order to just keep the system weight reasonable.
So plus size tyres do get a lot of grip at low speeds, but get more and more unruly as you go faster. Which is the opposite of good!
There are also quirks and problems with handling which are in a similar vein, for plus tyres.
All that said, fat bikes are hilarious fun! But they're essentially fun for all the wrong reasons. And if you already have a plus bike, crack on! No harm in it. I just wouldn't recommend them to anyone
