If the Fat Bike Company sounds familiar, it might be due to the fact that as the parent company of Borealis Bikes, they’ve certainly been turning some heads in the fatbike world recently. Now, the same team that brought you the incredible 21 pound carbon Yampa fatbike has a new project. Setting their sights on components, the Fat Bike Company is introducing Turnagain – a parts and accessories company dedicated to fatbikes. Turnagain might sound like an odd name for a component company, but it finds its roots in the Turnagain Pass and Arm just South of Anchorage, Alaska, known for its snowy playground.
Rims are just the beginning, as the company plans on releasing a number of parts in the future. For now though, check out the eyeletted rims and rim strips after the jump!
80mm rims are fairly common these days, but an 80mm cutout rim with eyelets? That’s something special. The single wall rims are built with 64 eyeletted spoke holes for centered or offset lacing. Like any rim with eyelets, especially single wall, the eyelets help with wheel building keeping the nipples turning freely, and help distribute the load of the nipple evenly around the rim hole. That results in straight wheels that can usually be brought up to higher tension, keeping them straight, longer. Thanks to the cutouts, the rim weight is kept to 890g even with the eyelets. At $140 MSRP per rim, the FR80 will likely offer some serious competition to other rim manufacturers. The only downside? In our book that would be the choice to use a pinned seam rather than a welded seam – but hey, my Vicious GFS pinned rims are still going strong.
FR80 rims are available in 3 anodized colors, black, silver, and red and are being offered for aftermarket or OEM sales.
With those cutouts, you’re going to need some rims strips. You know, if you don’t want to go the gorilla tape and ribbon route. Enter the Turnagain RS80, a durable rim strip that is perfectly matched to the 80mm wide FR80 rim. Strips will be offered in 3 colors for $5 a pop.
FR80 rims and RS80 strips are available now.
