Yesterday we told you about the Gocycle G3 we've got in for testing. And right at the other end of the e-bike spectrum we've got this monster truck of a bike: The Fantic Fat Sport Performance, a £3,195 fat bike with a Brose motor.
You might not have heard of Fantic. They're an Italian manufacturer based not far north of Venice, but they're best known for their enduro motorbikes. Now they have a range of all-electric MTBs and fat bikes too. There are two models of fat bike, the off-road-oriented Sport that we have, and the more urban Seven Days. There's two builds of the Sport, the rigid Performance model here and the slightly more expensive Race which gains a Rock Shox Bluto suspension fork.
The alloy frame of the Fat Sport uses the fat 150mm/177mm fat bike axle standards front and rear and the top tube is slightly dropped for more standover height. There's a small extra tube between seat tube and top tube to stiffen up that hunction
Those tyres! the Fat Sport rolls on massive four-inch tyres on super-wide 26" Gipiemme rims. You really don't need much air in them: currently we're running ours at about 12psi which is just about right for mixed trail riding, you can pump them up a bit if you're predominantly on the road. The huge air chambers give a fair amount of cushioning over the rough stuff.
Transmission-wise Fantic use the Brose motor. Brose make all their motors on-site at their Berlin facility; They're a huge automotive component manufacturer and the motor they used is one they originally developed for steering assistance in vehicles. It uses a belt drive instead of a gear reduction so it's very quiet, and it's pretty compact too. Fantic spec a 417Wh BMZ battery on this beast and you get Brose's backlit display and simple thumb remote.
The Fat Sport has a 10-speed SRAM GX drivetrain with an 11-36 cassette at the rear for a good range of climbing and cruising gears. When it's time to stop there's Avid DB1 brakes at both ends, with a 200mm rotor at the front and a 180mm rotor at the rear. The frame has rack bosses at the rear (though not on the seatstays) and also a plate for mounting a kickstand; ours came supplied with one but we've taken it off as it's a bit of a hindrance off-road.
That's enough talk for now: time to go riding! We'll follow up with a full review soon...
