arthurtuxedo
100 W
I've been researching fat bikes lately, but all of the writing about them has been in the context of mountain biking and snow riding. I am more interested in them for Class 3 urban riding, but have not been able to find much info about this type of bike. My current bike was a busted eZee Sprint that I've been building up into an urban cruiser. Right now it has a Wald 3133 front basket and a Companion rear seat with a Wald 583 folding basket attached to the rails. I also have an Arkel pannier backpack and a milk crate I can secure to the seat (or I can just tie down heavy items directly to the seat). All together, it can carry a significant amount of cargo for a non-cargo bike, and I'm planning to add capability for 28 MPH bursts of speed with a Phaserunner. The problem is that I would really hate to hit a pothole at 28+ MPH on 1.75" wide tires while loaded down, and I can see this type of bike working a lot better with 3.8" tires. Other than lower battery efficiency and slower acceleration (which is just an excuse for moar power), I can't see any significant downsides.
If there's one thing I've learned in my research and experience with e-bikes so far, it's that if a seemingly brilliant idea doesn't already exist, there are usually good reasons why not. The only fat tire urban or cargo bike that springs to mind is the Surly Big Fat Dummy, and they always market it as a cargo bike for trails, and always recommend the Big Dummy instead for urban riding. So I put the question to E-S: Why are companies not selling fat tire e-bikes for high-speed urban utility and cargo, and why would it be a bad idea for me to build up such a bike?
If there's one thing I've learned in my research and experience with e-bikes so far, it's that if a seemingly brilliant idea doesn't already exist, there are usually good reasons why not. The only fat tire urban or cargo bike that springs to mind is the Surly Big Fat Dummy, and they always market it as a cargo bike for trails, and always recommend the Big Dummy instead for urban riding. So I put the question to E-S: Why are companies not selling fat tire e-bikes for high-speed urban utility and cargo, and why would it be a bad idea for me to build up such a bike?