Conditions have been terrible this season and I've been struggling a lot more on the trail this year than ever before. Also getting used to a new bike (2014 Mukluk vs 2010 Al Fatback). Built the Muk up from the frame with my old parts & geo is not all that different, so I'm pretty sure it's not the bike, but the conditions (dry, sugary, wind drifted snow with too few trail users to pack things down) that are causing me trouble. Still, I've been wondering if there's anything to gain in stretching the Muk a bit by sliding the Alternator dropouts rearward. Anyone tried this? Any gains in handling or float (all other things being equal)? I've been running the rear wheel all the way forward and like the way the bike handles on hard surfaces. Any opinions on longish vs shortish chainstays for snow riding? Maximum adjustment appears to be .75 inches.
Chainstay length, fatbike handling, and float?
veloborealis
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If you were trenching the trail at 3psi why on earth would you not drop pressure?
You can argue geometry all you want but if you don't know enough to keep going lower on pressure there isn't much point.
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A couple years ago I upgraded from a size Large Fatboy to an XL Scott Big Ed. Initially I was pretty upset because the BE seemed to have lost a lot of traction, float and climbing versus the Fatboy. Being on the smaller end of the height range for an XL, I think my weight was distributed too far back which had a couple of negative impacts. First the front and would wheelie too easily and didn't climb very well. The other thing that surprised me was float. I was overloading the rear tire and it didn't float well. And, the front tire was basically underutilized for its float. I made two small tweaks that made a huge difference. 1st I dropped the stem down by two spacers which probably moved 5-10 pounds forward. Second, I slid the seat forward about 5mm. These two changes made a huge difference in any sort of loose conditions and/or where you need float. Things about like a canoe....you want to have good fore aft balance or it won't track right.
Edit: the Big Ed has a longer wheelbase but still had issues without distributing enough weight forward.
Edit: the Big Ed has a longer wheelbase but still had issues without distributing enough weight forward.
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I like chainstays.
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That's as good a reason as any, and we do that sometimes too. We all have our own level of tolerance for walking.
It's this sort of open-minded thinking that leads to real scientific breakthroughs. Good thing you're open to it...
Snow conditions vary by location. Yours are clearly different from mine. I don't have any reason to not believe you, even if in 20 years of riding every kind of snow condition available in the northern hemisphere I have yet to find a combo of conditions that has produced the same conclusion that you've drawn. I'm always experimenting with different setups -- sometimes on my main bike, sometimes by borrowing bikes from friends or local shops -- to try to make things work better. I don't have a dogmatic approach to this: I just want incremental improvement every season. And the past few years have given better than incremental -- as long as you're open to change.
I wish that we (collectively) could find a better term than "short chainstays" to describe what I'm after with my flotation bikes, because there's so much more to it than that one parameter. Putting the rider's CoG closer to the rear axle seems to be accurate, as well as less of a hot button phrase.
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So, in the end, we've determined that some it comes down to preference, some local/regional conditions, some bike geo beyond mere chainstay length and some of it can be addressed with proper tire pressure at least as much as a slightly shorter or longer chainstay. Wow - who knew?
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I think some preferences might also be due to stubborness
So, in the end, we've determined that some it comes down to preference, some local/regional conditions, some bike geo beyond mere chainstay length and some of it can be addressed with proper tire pressure at least as much as a slightly shorter or longer chainstay. Wow - who knew?
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Yup, as is often the case. And sometimes preferences are formed prior to extensive experience, rather than the other way around.I think some preferences might also be due to stubborness
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And, if you really think about the totality of what you just wrote, you could conclude that it really says nothing of value at all. Because as the conditions deteriorate it's the fine details that matter...So, in the end, we've determined that some it comes down to preference, some local/regional conditions, some bike geo beyond mere chainstay length and some of it can be addressed with proper tire pressure at least as much as a slightly shorter or longer chainstay. Wow - who knew?
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You know, it's this ^ kind of thinking that gets in the way of making sweeping, universal statements.
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Actually the biggest annoyance to me is the FRONT end of the bike trenching out or suddenly sinking into the trail, stopping all forward progress.
I don't really have a strong enough opinion on chainstay length to feel it's worth it to convince others to share my view...so I really can't comment on that matter. But if I had to choose one end of the bike to sink and stop, it would be the rear.
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I bet if you had longer chainstays that wouldn't happen.
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Careful - I just received a red chiclet from someone (who hasn't contributed a single post to this thread), telling me I'm not taking this thread seriously enough for their liking.still, short chainstays are better
To appease this dork, who shall remain nameless, I'll reiterate what I tried to say above (albeit with a sense of humor), and which apparently went right over his/her head - there's more going on than mere chainstay length. I see that as an obvious, objective fact, and it seems like most of us agree on that. The subjective part of me, however, still prefers chainstays on the shorter end (at least for a bike that runs a 5" tire, in my case), and I have yet to find a downside to that on snow. I ride in the northern Rockies, across the spectrum of conditions typical for this region.
As with just about every topic on this forum, YMMV, especially if/when filtered through your own personal bias lens.
Was that 'serious' enough? Hope so, because I will now go back to taking very little about bikes all that seriously. Deal with it.
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*You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Smithhammer again.*
IMO, which means virtually nothing as the vast vast majority of my fat bike time has been on 2 fat bikes (Framed MN 2.2 and On-One fatty Trail w/ a 485 a-c carbon fork), shorter chainstays with a longer front end is better than longer chain stays with a shorter front end... in the snow.
IMO, which means virtually nothing as the vast vast majority of my fat bike time has been on 2 fat bikes (Framed MN 2.2 and On-One fatty Trail w/ a 485 a-c carbon fork), shorter chainstays with a longer front end is better than longer chain stays with a shorter front end... in the snow.
I'm trying to imagine how the front would sink in before the rear. The only logical explanation is you're riding some sort of fat pennyfarthing.
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This made me laugh out loud
Last time I got a red chiclet, it was from someone who thought a joke was real; an unnamed dude from Utah.
What makes this entire conversation ridiculous is the idea that we expect a bicycle with a footprint smaller than a snowshoe, to support our stoopid arses as we trundle along a trail at half the speed we could hike.
Really people, does this not figure into your thinking?
I enjoy the challenge of biking in soft snow, but packed snow is the only snow riding that makes sense. If I needed to do some serious backcountry travel, I'd get skis or snowshoes.
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