How do you fold 4″ tires at single digit pressures over even looser trail surfaces? Why add in 100mm of Horst-link 4-bar suspension, of course. Sure plus-sized tires seem to be all the rage for fast and aggressive all-mountain and enduro riding, but there is still quite a vocal camp that wants the even wider tires of a proper fat bike to crawl over and through all manner of soft & loose terrain. Framed’s latest full suspension fat bike, the carbon Montana does just that, pairing the full carbon fat frame with a matching 100mm travel Bluto fork to literally plow through any type of trail, any time of year…
Framed has apparently been working on their full suspension carbon fat bike for more than two and a half years to dial in what they are saying will be just as much fun to pedal up a scree slope as it will be to bomb down loose & slippery descents.
Details remain pretty limited on the full-suspension fatty, but Framed says that they will offer a number of complete bike builds ranging from a $2450 bike with an NX drivetrain and alloy wheels, up to a $3850 complete bike with X01 Eagle and their own carbon wheelset introduced last summer, each one wrapped in Framed’s 120tpi Wolftrax/Minnesota 26 x 4″ folding tires.
The new Montana frame is made from UD carbon and gets the ‘narrow for fat bikes’ 177x12m rear thru-axle standard that works with more manageable q-factors at the crankset so it pedals more like a bike than a boat. That also tends to limit tire clearance to 4″ vs. the giant 4.8″ ones, but with 100mm of travel that is hardly a comfort issue. The frame also gets an integrated 1.5″ tapered headset, a replaceable derailleur hanger, and internal routing including for a dropper post. Suspension is handled out back by a RockShox Monarch RT3 and a SoloAir Bluto fork for all build levels.
One other important thing to note out of that brief spec list, is that the bikes will be 1x drivetrain only. Framed says that very few bike buyers have been ordering double drivetrains on their fat bikes, so that gave them the chance to work with as much tire clearance as they could and keep chainstay length from getting out of hand.
The new bike won’t be available until June 1st, but they are taking pre-orders now through their ‘factory-direct’ online retailer The-House.com before they even start to pop up on Framed’s own website. The Montana comes in three stock sizes and what looks like this single black & blue paint job. The bikes look to be an online-only offering, at least for now, so we’ll have to wait and see if a version transitions to their local shops as well.
