After about 30cm of new snow and our first year on the fatties, here are a few comments. My brother is on a Rocky Mountain with 26”x4.6” studded CakeEaters and I’m on a 2022 Farley 5 with the carbon fork and 27.5”x4.5”, tubeless, studded Gnarwhals.
1. Fatbiking in the snow before the trails are packed/set is a massive workout and our average speed is way, way down from the 29’ers at about 7km/hr. Folks don’t talk about this so much but it’s a slog!
2. We swapped bikes last night on a firmer/freshly groomed (but still soft) area of singletrack and were both struck by the differences in the bikes. The tubeless 27.5’s definitely have more traction (we’re in the 3 psi range as we’re both over 200lbs) and the carbon fork tubeless setup on the Trek feels radically lighter than the 26” Rocky Mountain setup. I believe his studs are steel vs my aluminum/carbide setup.
3. We’re both in agreement that the 27.5” combination with the carbon fork on the Farley is a massive upgrade over the RM setup. To be fair, the Farley is a ligher bike also by 5-6lbs, but I had it loaded with a rear rack, tools, and the lithium pack/light kit last night.
4. The 27.5×4.5” seems cartoonishly huge, but the longer wheel footprint definitely makes for better traction at slow climbing speeds on the soft stuff where you need to really focus on slow, controlled pedal strokes to avoid breaking loose.
by Big-Strawberry-8637