My winter bike
For the longest time my REEB Donkadonk was just the bike with big studded tires, and that's the only reason why I rode it. But after spending a season on my Stooge MK4 I knew there had to be a way to make a better fat bike-- one that draws from Jones and Stooge geometry while still being optimized for snow but also feeling good in the dry months. Ultimately, the bike needs to optimize traction, especially on the front wheel. Most fat bikes I see achieve this through a short-ish wheelbase courtesy of a short top tube, steep head tube, and really long stem. And I can’t go for that. My hunch was that lowering the trail figure through fork offset would help keep the front wheel tracking forward and not flopping over and sliding out. And of course a shorter top tube than a trail or modern enduro bike, but nothing crazy.
So last year a friend and I started designing what was basically a fat Stooge Scrambler with an 83mm bottom bracket shell and 177mm rear spacing. It was designed around the [still out-of-stock] Jones LWB fork to help save money and get a 76mm fork offset. My friend is really good with Bike CAD, so he drew it up, and then we sat on it, awaiting the Jones fork to come back in stock.
Then one day he messaged me with the idea of brazing BMX style dropouts onto a pre-existing fork. He drew up and fabricated some dropouts to mate to a Surly Ice Cream Truck Fork, adding offset to have a total of 76mm. I found us a pair of basically unused Surly Ice Cream Truck forks and shipped them his way. He chopped off the stock dropouts and brazed on the new ones.
The fork showed up as we were getting a solid amount of snow here in the city, and right before an up north riding trip I had planned. So I installed it, accidentally put on the wrong IS brake adapter, quickly sorted that, then pedaled out for a long slow ride of breaking trail on a fresh snowfall.
Even though the ride was slow the change in geometry was immediately noticeable. The giant front wheel definitely wanted to track more in a straight line. When I found one little car tire track to ride in it took a lot less effort to stay in the rut and keep moving forward. When riding blown up parts of groomed trails (because people really air their tires up way too high) I felt like my front wheel didn’t want to flop over nearly as much in the various ruts and bumps. I don’t know how a stock ICT fork rides, but this one rides way softer than the RSD carbon fork I replaced it with. Yeah I added a pound or more, but I will definitely not be returning to a painful carbon fork like that again.
Even though winter was short, I was able to get a lot of great rides in. From breaking trail, to trying to float on 8” of snow on top of 2’ of groom, to hard packed forest roads, to perfect fast groomed singletrack, my REEB is actually a bike I look forward to riding now. All it took was the custom fork.
Those who ride in the winter know that you have to have a [forgive me] run what ya brung attitude to winter riding. The reality is you kind of just don't know what you're going to get into when you head out. If you have that attitude then it's fun. But if you wanna shred all the time you're not going to get that unfortunately. On the other hand I feel a real romanticism knowing that what I’m riding might not be there next month, next week, or even tomorrow. Fortunately I settled in on a goldilocks setup with my REEB Donkadonk that worked on all of the aforementioned conditions. Yes, there were a couple times where I wish I had super fast rolling Dillinger 5s for flat groomed trails. But I just don’t care enough to swap my tires… yet. I do have these TPU fat tubes that I’m curious to try next year maybe.
Frame: REEB Donkadonk medium
Fork: Surly Ice Cream Truck modified with 76mm offset
Headset: Tange Seiki de-anodized by yours truly
Saddle: Brooks C17 carved
Seat Post: PNW Rainier gen 3 170 mm
Handlebar: Crust x Nitto Harvey Mushman
Stem: PNW Coast 60mm, slammed and upside down for maximum front wheel traction
Grips: Loam Labs Counterpunch
Brake Levers: Paul Love Lever compact
Brake Calipers: Avid BB-7
Drivetrain: SRAM X01 11 speed
Housing: Velo Orange
Crank: cheap AliExpress 152mm square taper cranks, but I probably need to buy some 155mm Hopes
Cassette: ZTTO 9-46 11 speed
Pedals: Deity Deftrap
Hubs: Pub (Bitex) 177/150 mm
Rims: Alexrims Blizzerk 65 27.5”
Tires: Bontrager Gnarwhal front / Terrene Yippee Ki Yay rear (in rear orientation), both studded
The bike is such a far cry from how I originally set it up, and it’s better in every way. I’m looking forward to getting some more summer miles on it with the summer wheelset, especially now that my Stooge MK4 is single speed. Initial impressions are that it’s more nimble than the MK4, with even less wheel flop. Which makes me think it will be a great dirt tourer, ATB, and long day mile muncher. The MK4 still is my current favorite rigid trail bike, so there’s still more to learn about rigid bike geometry between these two bikes.
