In addition to its wild looks, this custom Beargrease fat bike comes to us with an interesting story. It was submitted by Todd Miller, a physical therapist, athletic trainer, holder of a Masters of Science in human performance and part time employee and master bike fitter at the West Hill Bike and Ski shop in Putney, Vermont. When one of his clients injured his knee, the mostly road rider was looking for something a bit more sure footed to get back out on the bike and cruise their local trails.
The bike had only a few requirements – it had to be light, it had to be easy to ride, and it had to be cool. Looks like they delivered…
Photos courtesy of West Hill Shop
Right off the bat, the sweet custom paint job by Hot Tubes grabs your attention. Starting with the Salsa Beargrease carbon frame, the colors were done up to represent Symbotic, one of the client’s companies.
As pictured the bike comes in at a super light 23.5 lbs (10.65kg). To get there the frame is built up with HED Big Deal carbon rims with Industry 9 hubs, RaceFace Next SL cranks, a Thomson Dropper post, ENVE bars, and a Shimano XTR 9000 Di2 group. Todd points out that the frame technically isn’t Di2 compatible, but they were able to run run it mostl internal with a steerer tube mounted battery and Shimano’s PRO Tharsis XC Di2 stem and a single e-tube directly from the display to the rear derailleur.
If this counts as physical therapy, count me in.
Todd is a great guy, and a great rider
My only gripe is the mile of headset spacers. enve makes a 46mm bar for that!
I can’t believe nobody complained about the spacers/flipped stem combo yet.
can’t unsee steerer
Needs smaller chainring.
sweet bike
Is the steerer tube length due to di2 battery being inside (did I read that correctly)?
I can second that reason. I’ve got Di2 on my Beargrease and I cut the steerer shorter. The battery can’t fit because there’s a vane of carbon that extends upward (internally) from where the legs of the fork meet.
Knee injury, massive q factor, seems like a terrible idea to me.
+1 Doug. I was trying to hold the snark back, but you took care of that.
Can’t unsee the mismatched green on the chain ring. 😐
Custom 23.5 pound di2 fat bike with a dropper post.
Slam that stem roadie crowd outraged at steerer height.
Noted.
Tested out XTR Di2 on my fatbike last weekend. Worked flawlessly in garage at 60+ F, performed erratically at best once it adjusted to the 0-20 F temps I was riding in. Back in the garage after an hour or so it performed flawlessly once again. Anyone else have experience with this?
Great bike. I wonder how the Di2 works in the cold.
whistle blown, flag on the play, bring in the stretcher… dropper post and looooooooong stem and steerer = FOUL! 🙂