So for those of you following along you already know that I got a bug up my butt to build a fat bike...  And if you haven't been following along, you really need to pay more attention, you better do some homework and catch up...  That's three Hail Mary's and a Lord's prayer for you.  Anyway, this couldn't be "just a fat bike", it needed to be something special!  So, I jumped right into the latest fatbike trend a 27.5 x 4 wheeled bike.  In theory, it sounded good.  My gut said it would be fun, so why not???  Well, fast forward a few months and let me walk you through what I ended up with!  

So to start with, a nice steel frame.  A question that everyone alway asks me is "What kind of steel"?  So we will save you some effort and I'll tell you before you ask.  Dedacciai.  What, you've not heard of it???  Well shame on you, what kind of Italian are you???  Oh wait, you're not...  Anyway, let's just say Dedaccaia is a really nice tube from Italy.  More importantly, they offer the tubing butting profile that I was after.  To go deeper will most likely bore you to tears but suffice to say, this bike is made with an oversize tubeset that was picked to match up with my size, weight and riding style!  

If you've ever purchased a handmade frame before, you'll know that one of the most difficult parts of the process is choosing the color scheme and graphics.  Well, this build was not different.  My plan started as a gray bike with a gray panel and red components.  Yeah, in my head that seemed perfect!  Then the cheap side of me came out and I considered using paint I had left over...  So the bike (in my head) evolved to blue, orange and white.  But then I thought better of it and decided to return to my original scheme of gray on gray...  Oh, then I went to the store to buy some paint.  Yeah.  Well, needless to say I came home with baby blue and white, so yeah, don't ask.  Anyway as you can see it's a fairly classic and typically "Ferretti" paint job!

Then of course comes the fun of spec'ing out all of the components!!!  So again, to know me is to know I like practical, durable and well designed parts...  I don't want to totally bore you with the tiniest of details as well as why I decided to select that component so I'll give you a brief overview here and then a bunch of pictures!  

Frame:  we talked about it and if you didn't read above, shame on you...
Wheels:  Whisky 80W Carbon 27.5 x 80mm rim, Industry Nine hubs, Sapim Spokes/nipples. 45NRTH Vanhelga tires.
Drivetrain:  Sram GX Eagel
Cockpit: Whisky Bicycle Components fork, stem, seatpost and handlebars.  White Industry headset. Fabric saddle.

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Ride:  Well, all I can say is man, this is light for a fatty...  You can definitely "feel" the lightness when you ride...  I used a short rear center and a fairly long front center meaning this fatbike handles like a modern mountain bike.  In fact, I had someone comment that this bike rode like a mountainbike, not a fat bike...  Enough said...  No more words here, you need to experience it!  So without further ramblings browse through some pics and enjoy!  As always, if you have questions, don't hesitate to reach out with them!

If you've been following along on our other social media outlets you'll see that I've been building a sweet fat bike...  Which means that I've been researching what's new and where I think the market may be going.  At this point the biggest thing I see changing is wheel size...  So, I present to you my newest addition to my rim stable, the Whisky 80w carbon fatbike rim.  Did I mention these are 27.5?   Yeah, I'm going to buy in on the 27.5 fat movement.

I thought I'd take a moment to share a quick glimpse under the hood of this new offering!  Let's get started, shall we?

Width-  Whisky keeps things pretty simple when naming their rims.  Browse through their website and you'll find that their naming conventions contain either a "W" or a "D".  "D" denote rim depth, "W" denotes rim width.  Easy peasy, right???  These rims, named the 80W would seemingly then measure 80mm, right???  Well, almost...

But heck, 83mm is close!!!!  Frankly, I would have called it the 83W but that's just me...  And to know and understand me is to embrace my weirdness...  Ok on to what really matters, the internal width.  This is the measurement that directly influences the width that your tire mounts up to.  

That's a nice, respectable 77mm.  More importantly, math will tell you that each bead wall is 3mm thick, pretty beefy in this world of "I've gotta have the lightest carbon bit on my 30 lb bike..."  But trust me I'll rant more about that in another post!  Back on task... I'll drop another post in the blog once these wheels are built up and I've mounted some tires pertaining to actual width.

Now, that's not all when it comes to weight...  Whisky Parts shipped these rims with their own rim tape, washers and tubeless valves (Oh, did I forget to mention that these rims are natively tubeless compatible???).  So good on you Whisky, good on you.  I know I've got the correct length valve and the correct width tape!  Sometimes it's the little things that give the impression of quality!   Anyway, back to my scale...

If you really want to geek out and save a few grams, you may be able to find a nice aluminum tubeless valve stem for this particular application.  Speaking of tubeless, the profile of this rim looks to be great!  Now, I don't goof around with ghetto tubeless, nor mounting non-tubeless tires.  That said, I've got a set of tubeless compatible tires heading here.  I'll post up a video of mounting them up so you'll hopefully see the ease a dedicated tubeless set up is.
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Ok- that's all I have for you right now!  I'll follow up with pictures, weights and thoughts once the complete wheel build is done!  If you have any questions, feel free to reach out!   

It's time...  Time to grow.  That said, we are looking for a few good people!  Notice I didn't say hot shot racers???  That's right, a few good people who can help to represent our brand, our bikes and beliefs.  If you are an avid rider and have what it takes to help build our brand and relationships in the bike community, drop us a line to introduce yourself! 

What's in it for you?  Well, you get to keep riding your bike in cool places so there's that...  Access to amazing deals on handmade bikes and wheels...  And heck, I'll probably even buy you beer and pizza occasionally...  And who doesn't like that?