While the fatbike world seems to be going crazy over building the lightest fatbikes, full suspension continues to be not far behind. The stumbling block for full suspension fatbikes has been the availability of a front fork, as the rumors of a fatty fork from a major manufacturer haven’t yet materialized. However, with a few companies now offering what appears to be the same inverted suspension fork as others on the market (though 11nine was the first to actually offer them for sale) perhaps full suspension fatbikes will soon flourish? 11nine thinks so and has put forth not only their prototype Direwolf full suspension frame, but their new LuLu inverted fork as well. Curious about the names? Well, Lance is a family man and at the time of picking a name his kids were 11 and 9 while LuLu is a nickname for his daughter.
This titanium prototype is a beauty, but what does production hold? Find out, next.
Based on 120mm of travel, the frame is currently a four bar design with a Horst Link style rear pivot and a floating lower shock mount. We say currently because Lance mentioned the pivots may change for the final production. The frame is currently running a 170x12mm rear thru axle and a 100mm threaded bottom bracket and a single front chanring. Lance also mentioned that the eye-to-eye on the shock will be a standard size which is important because the frame only will likely not include a shock so you can pick your own.
Tire clearance on the Direwolf is said to be adequate for a 4.25″ tire on a 65mm rim, and weight for the bike pictured was 35.48lbs without pedals though Lance thinks sub 33lbs would be possible.
The ti frame was very well built, but don’t expect ti for production – currently the only plans are for aluminum bikes down the road. The production frames will have a tapered head tube though allowing multiple options for forks, including the 11Nine LuLu. At $899, the LuLu maxes out at 110mm of travel and includes the 135x15mm front hub. Weight of the fork is just under 5 pounds and has rebound, and compression adjustments as well as a lockout.
The included hub is a 32 j-bend spoke design with 6 bolt rotor mounting and uses an internal cam thru axle.
11nine also had their titanium hardtail the Simus on display even though it was getting quite a bit less attention than its full suspension brother. Lance said production plans were definitely in place for the Direwolf, but Simus he didn’t sound so sure of. What do you think, should 11nine bring this bike to life? *Update: Lance told us he has decided to produce the Simus rigid out of aluminum.
