Jon likes his tyres like his adventures – on the large side! Being a tall chap he also struggled to find something ‘off the peg’ that fitted him, so he got in touch for a chat. The result was another finely designed Spanner Bike custom frame:
A few hundred miles around the coast of Scotland? A cheeky weekend bikepacking the King Alfred’s Way? Jon likes to unwind by heading into the great outdoors for adventure, and the comfy tyres of a fat bike are his preferred method of travel.
We started out by looking at his previous favourite machine, the Singular Puffin. He wanted to modernise the geometry slightly and tweak the design to suit his ‘all his height in his legs’ build! This is quite common, where people find that they need the length in the seat tube to accommodate their legs but don’t need the length in the top tube which comes with the larger frame sizes. This means they often get stuck somewhere in the middle and either need huge long seat posts, or tiny stems with saddles set as far forwards as they’ll go, so they can get a comfy position.
Fat bikes bring their own set of standards around hub and bottom bracket widths to make room for the monster truck tyres. Never mind the puny 148mm Boost dropout standard, these bikes typically run a 190mm rear hub width! These are usually paired with a 120mm bottom bracket shell instead of the standard 72mm mountain bike width.
A ‘Goldilocks’ bottom bracket width of 100mm is also available and this was the one that Jon went with, if your chain will still clear your tyres then you’ll end up with a better chainline for improved shifting and less wear. If you’re less lucky? Well, you can always space out a 100mm bottom bracket shell to fit the wider 120mm bottom bracket so it’s still possible to run either standard.
Given the chunky tyres we went with plate chain stays on both side of the frame to take care of clearance, while still keeping the chain stay length relatively short for good handling. We were also able to slacken the head angle slightly to keep the front end calm while allowing for the additional length of the 120mm travel fat bike suspension forks.
To compliment the adventurous nature of the fame we finished things off with some handy rack and fender mounts, and kept the gear and brake lines externally mounted to make maintenance easier. The dropper post cable is run through the downtube to keep it out of the way and allows the ‘anything cage’ mounts to be used to their full potential.
Part of the fun of having your own custom frame made is deciding on the graphics. Jon went with a classic reverse Spanner band on the down tube along with the signature ‘Spanner Bike’ CNC headtube logo.
But… Just who is ‘Bob’? Now that’s Jon’s secret 😉
So – what did Jon make of the results?
The bike is pretty bloody awesome to be fair! Goes up and down things very well and I gelled with it very quickly.
I’ve been getting some serious miles in – managed to bag my first 100 miler on it a couple of weekends ago!
Well done for designing such a cool fat bike!
Well, you can’t say fairer than that! It’s always great to be able to sit down with someone and work through what their ‘dream bike’ would look like. And, even better then, to see their reaction to how it turns out in real life! Which is why I do what I do and what Spanner Bike is all about.
If you’ve got an idea for a bike that you’d like to see turned into reality – then get in touch via the contact page and I’ll see what I can do!
