One of the more surprising bikes introduced at Eurobike, Rocky Mountain was showing off their new Suzi Q. Fat bikes may be slowing down in sales, but that hasn’t stopped companies from trying to improve them. One of the biggest issues seems to be the wider Q-Factor of the massive cranks needed to clear equally massive tires. Following the launch of Otso’s new Voytek fat bike, Rocky Mountain was showing their version of a narrow Q-factor fatbike with the Suzy Q line. Not only does the bike build on the narrow Q-Factor design, it also follows in Trek’s footsteps with 27.5 x 3.8″ tires…
Like the Otso, the Suzi Q’s design seems to revolve around a narrower bottom bracket shell. In this case, it’s also a PF107 shell which is the equivalent of an 83mm threaded bottom bracket. Rocky Mountain doesn’t specify which crank spindle is used (we’ll update this when we find out), but it’s assumed that they mean the RF149 spindle that Otso uses for the RaceFace Cinch cranks to achieve a Q-Factor of 183mm. Rather than build in the tire clearances of the Voytek, Rocky Mountain looks to have gone a different route with the narrower, yet taller 27.5 x 3.8″ Maxxis fat bike tires. Until now, Trek was the only company we know of using this size, but the introduction of Maxxis tires along with Bontragers signaled new bikes to come.
Also like the Otso, the Suzi Q line uses a 177 x rear hub which should offer better heel clearance and a narrower rear end. Available in S-XL frames, chainstay length is a short 434mm.
At the top end of the line, the -90º RSL uses Smoothwall Carbon C13 for both the frame and the fork with internal cable routing that is also Di2 ready. All of the Suzi Q frames also include braze ons inside the front triangle for super clean frame bag mounting. To go with the 177 rear hub, the front uses a 150 x 15mm hub that is Bluto ready.
Along with the carbon -90º and -70º RSL models, the Suzi Q will also come in a 6061 hydroformed aluminum frame for the -50º and -30º models. Built with nearly all the same specs as the carbon versions, the aluminum versions will offer similar Q-factor numbers, though as we learned with Otso, the Aeffect cranks provide a slightly wider Q-Factor than the RaceFace carbon cranks.
The aluminum frames also include the braze ons for frame bags and the 150 x 15mm front hub and Maxxis 27.5 x 3.8″ tires on 65mm Sun Ringle Duroc rims. Pricing ranges from $1899 to $4299 for the top end.
