Falken
Active Member
After reading @Denis Shelston's thread on his fender rubbing, I thought I would post another fix for it. I also experienced the fender rub issue, but strangely only at speed. For some reason, possibly wind or vibration, my front fender would start rubbing after 20km/h or so. When I looked down and noticed where it was rubbing I was quite startled. It was rubbing at the back of the fender on the front tire. This could potentially be a disaster if the fender "bit" into the tire since the tire is rotating against the edge of the fender, not with it, know what I mean? I tried adjusting it to get more clearance but it didn't work. My wife's bike had no issue. Maybe my fender was molded a little smaller? Anyways...here's what I did to put my mind at ease, so that the fender could not ever "bite" into the tire. I moved the bracket to the inside of the fender.
It took some flattening of the fender to get it to fit, but it's doable and doesn't look bad either. This way, even if the mounting strap comes loose, it is highly unlikely that I'm going to have an issue. There is still some rubbing when riding hard down a rough surface, but that's the only time.
This also worked to my advantage when I installed the Jumbo jim's. They are quite a bit more aggressive than the kenda's, and have large knobbies on the sides that would have rubbed on both fenders I'm sure. Really loving these tires! After a few trials at different pressures ( 8-25psi ), we think we have settled on 15psi. This seems to really work for us, super comfy to ride and still not hard to pedal. <------
On gravel roads you can feel the tire absorb the rocks, rather than bounce over them, and the same on the trails, it just soaks them up. With this tire at 15psi, it feels just as easy or possibly even easier to pedal than the kenda's at 25psi. Even at 8psi you could still ride on asphalt and not feel a whole lot of self steer. The kenda's I could barely pedal around at 8 psi. It's kind of like comparing apples to oranges, so I'll just stop there.
Next thing we did was change up the decals on both bikes. My wife was a little bummed that she couldn't get the white Teo in the large frame, and had to go with black. So I thought it would be nice to at least change up the blue to a color she likes more....PINK! I tried to keep the name along the same theme as the original, but just have something other than "fat bike". I also wanted to keep it french since it comes from Quebec and I just think it's neat. It said "Teo Velo" on my receipt and I liked that better so...there it is. Here's how they turned out,
The next thing I changed was the gearing. We use these bikes not only for riding and viewing the country but also for some exercise. So a lot of the time we have the PAS turned off. My wife and I both found 1st gear to be a little on the hard side when climbing hills, and found we had to use PAS just to make it up some of the hills we ride on. We even ran into some that in 1st gear/PAS9, it was still quite difficult. We both wanted to have a little lower gear to help out in that regard. So what I've done is changed out the stock 46 tooth chainring for a 39 tooth.
First gear on our bikes is a 34 tooth.(on the rear cassette) Just using these to make a ratio, stock 1st gear would be 1.353 to 1. Meaning the rear tire rotates 1.353 times for every revolution of the crank. The new gear ratio works out to 1.147. Now you wouldn't think that would make much of a difference, but wow, yes it does! We did lose some top end but not as bad as I thought. Stock configuration, on a flat gravel road, PAS9 in 9th gear I could get the bike up to 35km/h. New gearing same road, I could achieve 32.5km/h. I was pedaling faster with the new chainring than I could with the stock one. I pedaled both as fast as I could lol. Those were the test results!
It wasn't difficult to do. I had to get a new chain guard fabricated. The stock ones are too big and it scraped when in 9th gear. Shortening up the diameter fixed that little issue.
Finished Product.
So that's it for now, hope everyone is enjoying their bikes as much as we are!!!
It took some flattening of the fender to get it to fit, but it's doable and doesn't look bad either. This way, even if the mounting strap comes loose, it is highly unlikely that I'm going to have an issue. There is still some rubbing when riding hard down a rough surface, but that's the only time.
This also worked to my advantage when I installed the Jumbo jim's. They are quite a bit more aggressive than the kenda's, and have large knobbies on the sides that would have rubbed on both fenders I'm sure. Really loving these tires! After a few trials at different pressures ( 8-25psi ), we think we have settled on 15psi. This seems to really work for us, super comfy to ride and still not hard to pedal. <------
On gravel roads you can feel the tire absorb the rocks, rather than bounce over them, and the same on the trails, it just soaks them up. With this tire at 15psi, it feels just as easy or possibly even easier to pedal than the kenda's at 25psi. Even at 8psi you could still ride on asphalt and not feel a whole lot of self steer. The kenda's I could barely pedal around at 8 psi. It's kind of like comparing apples to oranges, so I'll just stop there.
Next thing we did was change up the decals on both bikes. My wife was a little bummed that she couldn't get the white Teo in the large frame, and had to go with black. So I thought it would be nice to at least change up the blue to a color she likes more....PINK! I tried to keep the name along the same theme as the original, but just have something other than "fat bike". I also wanted to keep it french since it comes from Quebec and I just think it's neat
. It said "Teo Velo" on my receipt and I liked that better so...there it is. Here's how they turned out, The next thing I changed was the gearing. We use these bikes not only for riding and viewing the country but also for some exercise. So a lot of the time we have the PAS turned off. My wife and I both found 1st gear to be a little on the hard side when climbing hills, and found we had to use PAS just to make it up some of the hills we ride on. We even ran into some that in 1st gear/PAS9, it was still quite difficult. We both wanted to have a little lower gear to help out in that regard. So what I've done is changed out the stock 46 tooth chainring for a 39 tooth.
First gear on our bikes is a 34 tooth.(on the rear cassette) Just using these to make a ratio, stock 1st gear would be 1.353 to 1. Meaning the rear tire rotates 1.353 times for every revolution of the crank. The new gear ratio works out to 1.147. Now you wouldn't think that would make much of a difference, but wow, yes it does! We did lose some top end but not as bad as I thought. Stock configuration, on a flat gravel road, PAS9 in 9th gear I could get the bike up to 35km/h. New gearing same road, I could achieve 32.5km/h. I was pedaling faster with the new chainring than I could with the stock one. I pedaled both as fast as I could lol. Those were the test results!
It wasn't difficult to do. I had to get a new chain guard fabricated. The stock ones are too big and it scraped when in 9th gear. Shortening up the diameter fixed that little issue.
Finished Product.
So that's it for now, hope everyone is enjoying their bikes as much as we are!!!
Last edited:
