Banzai
Active Member
It was only a few years ago when I first set eyes on a production fat bike and recognized immediately how it would be perfectly at home here in the SoCal Mojave Desert with its wide expanses of sandy beach property. It was only natural I would end up with one of those bikes soon after retiring, but only after researching what was available. I discovered there were many to choose from with a range in pricing from just a couple hundred dollars up to $5k or more and available with steel, aluminum, titanium, or carbon fiber frames, and some have electric power. So many to choose from, I wanted the extra boost provided on an e-bike, but the higher end bikes tend to be overkill unless in a locale where endless mountain trails wind around and down thru switchbacks, rocks, and jumps, so I chose RAD Power Bikes and they made it real easy for me to have a Rover that I now ride almost daily.
Fat bikes are one of those phenomenal inventions that can be easily equipped for just about any purpose. After all they were designed with oversize tires specifically for riding over snow, and were soon found to be perfectly at home in other environments as well. They are easily customized and often become the trademark of its owner. You name the life style or the task, and there's probably a fat bike suitably provisioned for it. So it's great having many to choose from, whether intended as a beach cruiser, or a chopper, or even an ice cream truck. The fat bikes, like the '55 Chevy, are going to survive the ages regardless of the many other changes that occur over time.
Adding electric power gave fat bikes a real advantage under adverse conditions and where conventional bikes experience difficulty. Until recently most of the electric fat bikes were based on production bikes modified with hub and mid-drive conversion kits. The popular following for fat bikes is significant, so it was only natural that as the industry raised the bar by integrating the electronics more solidly into the bike design, the chances of the bike holding together are improved greatly when shredding the most radical of trails. So now we are seeing a few electric fat bikes that were designed from the ground up and built to adequately provide the necessary quick responsiveness needed when descending the mountain trails. Fortunately EBR travels far and wide to include reviews on this new breed of electric fat bikes as they become available, and there is some hint of an increasing interest in off road biking approaching showing tons of appeal to many riders.
Competition bikes like the Stumpjumper are designed to withstand a clean descent thru hell when in the hands of expert guidance. For that, they command an extremely high price and are really intended for technical riding than for plowing thru desert sand washes, so they don't really present anything superior in this domain where fat bikes breed and raise little plus bikes. My RADRover is perfectly dialed-in for carrying me thru mountain passes, up and over sand hills, and thru soft sand, and for that I get an excellent workout, which is really what my rides are all about anyway. The bike is extremely reliable and very easy to keep tuned with a routine check of its components. The front suspension, derailleur, and mechanical disk brakes are an excellent match for the terrain, and they always work perfectly. Seven gears provide all the leverage necessary to climb the hills without power. The front suspension rarely bottoms out, and the bike always survives to ride yet another day - exactly my modus operandi for biking.
The RADRover is a tall bike and better suited for taller riders standing 6' or more. I made a few necessary mods to the Rover when discovering after a few rides that leaning forward onto the RPB handlebars was entirely unnecessary and my back was feeling the stresses of it. The rigidity of the hardtail design wasn't helping matters either. This called for arranging things so that I would be sitting in a more upright position, and for that I would need to raise the stem and install wider handlebars. So my first modification was to mount H-Bar handlebars ordered online from Jonesbikes.com located in Oregon. Jones has several H-Bars to choose from and were designed to relieve fatigue in the hands and arms by changing the grip angle to 45 degrees, and that naturally positions the grip area more rearward. The style I ordered also lifts the grips by 2.5 inches. RPB is generous with the cable lengths on the Rover so with the added distance required by the H-Bar design, the grips, controls, and cables all fit onto the new bars. But I still wanted more handlebar height, so longer brake and derailleur cables were ordered along with a new Delta raised headset and a shorter stem from Wake to set the bars upward and back a little more. Now I am sitting upright in cruiser fashion while riding and don't lean on the grips quite as much. It also allows me to put my weight more rearward and sit more comfortably on the seat with better command over the steering and more power when pedaling.
Next I added a Suntour suspension seat post and a plush Cloud Nine seat that now has me floating over the rough terrain. Adding a Mirrycle mirror now lets me spot anyone trying to sneak up from behind.
In operation my RAD Rover performs equally well in power assist mode as it does in throttle only mode, and I have really been spoiled by its 26x4" fat tires that just roll over the soft sand. For all-around riding, RPB recommends 20 pounds tire pressure, but when riding around in soft sand all day, dropping the pressure to five pounds is key for best performance. In summary, there is nothing more to add that would improve on this bike. My daily rides are building strength in my legs because I intentionally limit the use of battery power, and so it only requires a recharge once a week, and that's when the bike gets a thorough check of all components. I have no doubts that the Rover will still be just as much fun next year and probably ten more years down the line as it is right now. The follow-up support from RPB is excellent and my questions always get a quick response. They say it best at RPB, these are the bikes we like to ride and work on, and from what I have observed, they can't keep enough of them in stock to fill all the orders.
Fat bikes are one of those phenomenal inventions that can be easily equipped for just about any purpose. After all they were designed with oversize tires specifically for riding over snow, and were soon found to be perfectly at home in other environments as well. They are easily customized and often become the trademark of its owner. You name the life style or the task, and there's probably a fat bike suitably provisioned for it. So it's great having many to choose from, whether intended as a beach cruiser, or a chopper, or even an ice cream truck. The fat bikes, like the '55 Chevy, are going to survive the ages regardless of the many other changes that occur over time.
Adding electric power gave fat bikes a real advantage under adverse conditions and where conventional bikes experience difficulty. Until recently most of the electric fat bikes were based on production bikes modified with hub and mid-drive conversion kits. The popular following for fat bikes is significant, so it was only natural that as the industry raised the bar by integrating the electronics more solidly into the bike design, the chances of the bike holding together are improved greatly when shredding the most radical of trails. So now we are seeing a few electric fat bikes that were designed from the ground up and built to adequately provide the necessary quick responsiveness needed when descending the mountain trails. Fortunately EBR travels far and wide to include reviews on this new breed of electric fat bikes as they become available, and there is some hint of an increasing interest in off road biking approaching showing tons of appeal to many riders.
Competition bikes like the Stumpjumper are designed to withstand a clean descent thru hell when in the hands of expert guidance. For that, they command an extremely high price and are really intended for technical riding than for plowing thru desert sand washes, so they don't really present anything superior in this domain where fat bikes breed and raise little plus bikes. My RADRover is perfectly dialed-in for carrying me thru mountain passes, up and over sand hills, and thru soft sand, and for that I get an excellent workout, which is really what my rides are all about anyway. The bike is extremely reliable and very easy to keep tuned with a routine check of its components. The front suspension, derailleur, and mechanical disk brakes are an excellent match for the terrain, and they always work perfectly. Seven gears provide all the leverage necessary to climb the hills without power. The front suspension rarely bottoms out, and the bike always survives to ride yet another day - exactly my modus operandi for biking.
The RADRover is a tall bike and better suited for taller riders standing 6' or more. I made a few necessary mods to the Rover when discovering after a few rides that leaning forward onto the RPB handlebars was entirely unnecessary and my back was feeling the stresses of it. The rigidity of the hardtail design wasn't helping matters either. This called for arranging things so that I would be sitting in a more upright position, and for that I would need to raise the stem and install wider handlebars. So my first modification was to mount H-Bar handlebars ordered online from Jonesbikes.com located in Oregon. Jones has several H-Bars to choose from and were designed to relieve fatigue in the hands and arms by changing the grip angle to 45 degrees, and that naturally positions the grip area more rearward. The style I ordered also lifts the grips by 2.5 inches. RPB is generous with the cable lengths on the Rover so with the added distance required by the H-Bar design, the grips, controls, and cables all fit onto the new bars. But I still wanted more handlebar height, so longer brake and derailleur cables were ordered along with a new Delta raised headset and a shorter stem from Wake to set the bars upward and back a little more. Now I am sitting upright in cruiser fashion while riding and don't lean on the grips quite as much. It also allows me to put my weight more rearward and sit more comfortably on the seat with better command over the steering and more power when pedaling.
Next I added a Suntour suspension seat post and a plush Cloud Nine seat that now has me floating over the rough terrain. Adding a Mirrycle mirror now lets me spot anyone trying to sneak up from behind.
In operation my RAD Rover performs equally well in power assist mode as it does in throttle only mode, and I have really been spoiled by its 26x4" fat tires that just roll over the soft sand. For all-around riding, RPB recommends 20 pounds tire pressure, but when riding around in soft sand all day, dropping the pressure to five pounds is key for best performance. In summary, there is nothing more to add that would improve on this bike. My daily rides are building strength in my legs because I intentionally limit the use of battery power, and so it only requires a recharge once a week, and that's when the bike gets a thorough check of all components. I have no doubts that the Rover will still be just as much fun next year and probably ten more years down the line as it is right now. The follow-up support from RPB is excellent and my questions always get a quick response. They say it best at RPB, these are the bikes we like to ride and work on, and from what I have observed, they can't keep enough of them in stock to fill all the orders.
