I have a Foes Mutz, a full suspension fat bike, it's become my test bed for a lot of wheel riding experiments. My Mutz is outfitted with a 150mm travel Wren fork and a CCInline 140mm travel shock. I have ridden it with 26 x 4" wheels and 29+ wheels (rear barely fit), but my standard wheelset is 27+.
This year Foes and Timberline bikes release a bike theey developed that is frame specific bik for a 29/27 mixed wheel set. They have two set ups, the Trail version with an HTA of 67.5 deg, 150mm travel fork, and 140mm travel shock, and the Enduro version with an HTA of 66.5 deg, 160mm travel fork, and 160mm travel shock.
The neat thing about having a full suspension fat bike like the Mutz is that it has the space to accommodate a lot of wheel and tire options, including a mixed wheelset...and I just happen to have a lot of wheels
Earlier this week I swapped out my front wheel (27+) for a 29+ wheel off my tandem. Both wheels run the same hub (Onyx of course) and Scraper rims. The 29+ front wheel is shod with a Dirt Wizard, the 27+ rear wheel is shod with a WTB Trail Boss 3.0
The Foes Mutz starts life with a 67 deg HTA and a 70.5 STA, these angles are based on the Bluto 120mm travel fork. I am running a 150mm travel Wren fork which adds 30mm HT rise, so ~1.5 deg to the negative. So my "base" HTA with equal sized tires is ~65.5 deg. By changing my front wheel to a 29+ I added an additional ~10mm of HT rise, leading to a ~65 deg HTA, which is pretty durn slack for a trail bike.
First things first, being the doubter that I am, I take my Mutz up the hill behind our house; I aint gonna waste a dedicated ride on this craziness. Granted, the hill behind my is big and it leads into some rugged terrain and great single track. First impression: "hey, this thing climbs pretty good".
I was suprised, but still not sold, so I took my bastard Mutz out to a local short track area to run it through some tight turns and over a few jumps. This was a very telling trial because I ride at this area often and I have ridden it with many different bikes, hardtails, FS, fat bike, even muni.
I found that the mixed wheels took some time to learn the handling, firstly because the wheels took very different lines, secondly because the front wheel was sticking like glue! I found that I needed to push the front wheel into the turns and initiate early to stay on line, whereas in the past with 27+ I was more concerned about my front wheel blowing through the turn. The big front wheel really dug in, like it was on rails. I used to ride motos and the way the front end handled felt sorta like a dirt bike.
One of the things I noticed was the slack front end and big front wheel were not necessarily a compliment. Part of the problem with initiating turns on tight terrain was how slow the front end was due to the decreased HTA, aggravated by the bigger and heavier wheel. However, all these complaints aside, I actually liked the combination enough that I went home and took the next step: added an angleset.
Last night I installed a +1 deg angleset, which returned me to ~66deg HTA. There was some additional stack from the gimbals, maybe 4-5mm at the bottom cup and another 4-5mm at the top cup. I was only able to take a short ride up the backyard hill, but right out of the driveway the quickened handling was obvious and I no longer felt the weight and size of the 29+ wheel.
I was once a doubter, but now I'm a believer, hallelujah!
Of course there are problems inherent with running a taller wheel in front including increased stack, decreased HTA, and decreased STA. HTA and STA can be adjusted through the use of an angleset, but stack increase is more difficult to accommodate unless you want to run less fork travel. For these reasons, Foes built a frame that adjusted for these differences.
So my plan is to ride this mixed wheelset for a while and see if it improves my riding in all scenarios: tech climbs/descents, flow. and XC riding. I have no doubts this set up is good for descending as I already appreciate 29+ wheels for their terrain gobbling abilities.
Granted, Foes has a mixer specific frame design, but it's not as though a 27+ bikes can't be made into mixers with a the use of an angleset, all you need is a big wheel/fork and a little elbow grease
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and then I started thinking, what about a 27+/26+ mixer...
This year Foes and Timberline bikes release a bike theey developed that is frame specific bik for a 29/27 mixed wheel set. They have two set ups, the Trail version with an HTA of 67.5 deg, 150mm travel fork, and 140mm travel shock, and the Enduro version with an HTA of 66.5 deg, 160mm travel fork, and 160mm travel shock.
The neat thing about having a full suspension fat bike like the Mutz is that it has the space to accommodate a lot of wheel and tire options, including a mixed wheelset...and I just happen to have a lot of wheels
Earlier this week I swapped out my front wheel (27+) for a 29+ wheel off my tandem. Both wheels run the same hub (Onyx of course) and Scraper rims. The 29+ front wheel is shod with a Dirt Wizard, the 27+ rear wheel is shod with a WTB Trail Boss 3.0
The Foes Mutz starts life with a 67 deg HTA and a 70.5 STA, these angles are based on the Bluto 120mm travel fork. I am running a 150mm travel Wren fork which adds 30mm HT rise, so ~1.5 deg to the negative. So my "base" HTA with equal sized tires is ~65.5 deg. By changing my front wheel to a 29+ I added an additional ~10mm of HT rise, leading to a ~65 deg HTA, which is pretty durn slack for a trail bike.
First things first, being the doubter that I am, I take my Mutz up the hill behind our house; I aint gonna waste a dedicated ride on this craziness. Granted, the hill behind my is big and it leads into some rugged terrain and great single track. First impression: "hey, this thing climbs pretty good".
I was suprised, but still not sold, so I took my bastard Mutz out to a local short track area to run it through some tight turns and over a few jumps. This was a very telling trial because I ride at this area often and I have ridden it with many different bikes, hardtails, FS, fat bike, even muni.
I found that the mixed wheels took some time to learn the handling, firstly because the wheels took very different lines, secondly because the front wheel was sticking like glue! I found that I needed to push the front wheel into the turns and initiate early to stay on line, whereas in the past with 27+ I was more concerned about my front wheel blowing through the turn. The big front wheel really dug in, like it was on rails. I used to ride motos and the way the front end handled felt sorta like a dirt bike.
One of the things I noticed was the slack front end and big front wheel were not necessarily a compliment. Part of the problem with initiating turns on tight terrain was how slow the front end was due to the decreased HTA, aggravated by the bigger and heavier wheel. However, all these complaints aside, I actually liked the combination enough that I went home and took the next step: added an angleset.
Last night I installed a +1 deg angleset, which returned me to ~66deg HTA. There was some additional stack from the gimbals, maybe 4-5mm at the bottom cup and another 4-5mm at the top cup. I was only able to take a short ride up the backyard hill, but right out of the driveway the quickened handling was obvious and I no longer felt the weight and size of the 29+ wheel.
I was once a doubter, but now I'm a believer, hallelujah!
Of course there are problems inherent with running a taller wheel in front including increased stack, decreased HTA, and decreased STA. HTA and STA can be adjusted through the use of an angleset, but stack increase is more difficult to accommodate unless you want to run less fork travel. For these reasons, Foes built a frame that adjusted for these differences.
So my plan is to ride this mixed wheelset for a while and see if it improves my riding in all scenarios: tech climbs/descents, flow. and XC riding. I have no doubts this set up is good for descending as I already appreciate 29+ wheels for their terrain gobbling abilities.
Granted, Foes has a mixer specific frame design, but it's not as though a 27+ bikes can't be made into mixers with a the use of an angleset, all you need is a big wheel/fork and a little elbow grease
and then I started thinking, what about a 27+/26+ mixer...
