Narrowest Fat Tire ???

[LewTwo]

I have a stupid question about fat tire bikes:

What is the Narrowest Street (as opposed to knobbies) Fat Tire that can be mounted on the existing rims of a 26x4 fat tire bike (example: Bolton Fox Bat)?

https://boltonebikes.com/collections/mid-drive-ebikes/products/foxbat

 

[E-HP]

I have a stupid question about fat tire bikes:

What is the Narrowest Street (as opposed to knobbies) Fat Tire that can be mounted on the existing rims of a 26x4 fat tire bike (example: Bolton Fox Bat)?

https://boltonebikes.com/collections/mid-drive-ebikes/products/foxbat

Looks like around 3.8"

https://www.icebike.org/bike-tire-size-chart/
https://www.lightbicycle.com/newsletter/tire-size-chart-for-bicycle-rim.html
https://bicycle.kendatire.com/en-eu/tire-tech/rim-width/

 

[Chalo]

I have a stupid question about fat tire bikes:

What is the Narrowest Street (as opposed to knobbies) Fat Tire that can be mounted on the existing rims of a 26x4 fat tire bike?

The trend recently is towards slightly narrower rims than used to be used on fatbikes. Instead of 80mm wide rims for 4" tires and 100mm wide rims for >4" tires, 65mm wide rims have become more of a norm, with 100mm rims almost gone away entirely.

In the pedicab world, we put all kinds of tires on 65mm rims. 2.1" ThickSlicks end up about 2.7" actual, and 2.5" Maxxis Hookworms measure about 3".



From left to right: Sunlite Sandy Beach 26x2.5, Maxxis Hookworm 26x2.5, Origin8 Captiv8er/Vee Speedster 26x3.5, and Origin8 Supercell 26x4.

When you use a rim nearly as wide as the tire, it's a good idea to use a tire with some tread rubber up on the sidewall, like the Maxxis Hookworm, Schwalbe Crazy Bob or the like. Steep lean angles will put parts of the tire on the ground that would never touch down when mounted on a normal width rim.

So if your rims are 65mm wide (outside width), I'd recommend 2.25" and wider tires. If your rims are 80mm wide, I'd recommend 2.7" and wider tires.

This is a newly available 26x3" tire made by GMD/Gumonder that some peddicabbers are using these days. I doubt it's especially fast because of its heavy armor and casing, but it seems like a great option for urban riding. I'm probably going to try it on my next e-bike.

 

[E-HP]

The trend recently is towards slightly narrower rims than used to be used on fatbikes. Instead of 80mm wide rims for 4" tires and 100mm wide rims for >4" tires, 65mm wide rims have become more of a norm, with 100mm rims almost gone away entirely.

In the pedicab world, we put all kinds of tires on 65mm rims. 2.1" ThickSlicks end up about 2.7" actual, and 2.5" Maxxis Hookworms measure about 3".

So if your rims are 65mm wide (outside width), I'd recommend 2.25" and wider tires. If your rims are 80mm wide, I'd recommend 2.7" and wider tires.

This is a newly available 26x3" tire made by GMD/Gumonder that some peddicabbers are using these days. I doubt it's especially fast because of its heavy armor and casing, but it seems like a great option for urban riding. I'm probably going to try it on my next e-bike.

This matches the rule of thumb that that I saw on another site that if the tire is 20% greater than the rim width, it should work; so for a 60mm rim, that would be a 2.8" or wider tire for the Bolton bike.

Hopefully that new tire is a sign that plus sized tires are coming back now that ebikes are popular.

 

[Skaiwerd]

I don’t see things going narrower. Maybe a cheaper option now but some serious ebike riding does require a 3 to 5+ inch tire, my opinion please no bashing. It may be a plus or fat bike.

Put road tires on it and now it’s A?

Black wall 26 X 4 inch on the way. I’ll let you know what they are like. I’ll test them on 80mm rims.

 

[LewTwo]

This is a newly available 26x3" tire made by GMD/Gumonder that some peddicabbers are using these days. I doubt it's especially fast because of its heavy armor and casing, but it seems like a great option for urban riding. I'm probably going to try it on my next e-bike.

Observation: They use those on their Model "R" ebike that has 26 x 2 inch wide rims.
40-65 inflation pressure so I expect one is not going to get a lot of cushion out of them as well.

Another interesting feature of the model "R" is that the default drive train is single speed.
It does have a 750 watt motor and 26 Amp controller.

Any thoughts on the idea of single speed drive train (not for mountainous terrain obviously)

 

[calab]

Guy on a fatty trike electric was bouncing away on a break from a bumpy stretch, be hard to maneauver tight squeezes on the trailways.
Jealous at hand as I catch my breath :wink: standing over a rigid, pondering life.

Narrowest fat tire would be the tire without much knobbies

One good thing about a fat bike is you can install whatever tire you want, literally anything under 4" usually for fat bike bso's, 5" for $$$.
I got a fat bike that paid handsomely well for moi, kept the fork for suveneir, frame still good, should fix up. Could be a double jackpot bike for moi, besides it wasnt my fault, I was in the bike lane.

 

[Chalo]

This is a newly available 26x3" tire made by GMD/Gumonder that some peddicabbers are using these days.

Observation: They use those on their Model "R" ebike that has 26 x 2 inch wide rims.
40-65 inflation pressure so I expect one is not going to get a lot of cushion out of them as well.

One of the benefits of wide rims (relative to tire width) is that the tires remain laterally stable at low pressure. For my part, I think 40 psi is a silly high pressure for any 26x3" tire. 65 psi is for breaking stuff.

40-65 psi has been a default pressure rating for MTB tires for as long as I've been paying attention. The fact that it rarely changes when the tire volume changes leads me to believe it's only a due-diligence, protect the dingdongs from themselves rating. But when the tire is really big, it's not actually protective. Running a 26x3" tire at 65 psi is a lot riskier than running it at 25 psi.