BIKES DIRECT GRAVITY QUIGLEY FULL SUSPENSION FAT BIKE

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I got the Quigley. Yesterday I took it for a 6 mile single track shake down cruise. The front wheel is so massive it has a mind of its own, like a gyroscope. You can't ride no hands very easily. It is a bouncy bike with the full suspension and fat tires. With all the rear suspension parts and bushings and the massive size of the tires it is easy to take it by the seat and shake it side to side. The whole bike is wobbly when you shake it, but I didn't notice any of this riding it. I had to really watch it on the side of the gorge I was riding on as it doesn't track as easily as my 29er. On the straighter downhill sections I could run over stuff and on the flats I could run over rocks etc. I kept bouncing off my pedals and had to push up a short steep section as I lost my pedal. However on a bumpy downhill section where my friend has a problem with accumulative bouncing (getting worse and worse/more amplified with each bump) on his non suspension fat bike, I went down without any of that as the suspension took care of that. I tried the beginning of one of the black diamond single tracks and did no better on the fat bike than I can do with my 29er. The brakes are very adequate. The brake lever position needs to be adjusted as I had problems with my Swix split finger half mitts, I had trouble shifting with the small levers. Most people here ride in the winter with the half glove half mitten and I think it would be hard to shift this bike with them in the winter, but you mostly use the bottom 3 gears anyway with a snow bike. Yesterday only 3 short sections still had ice and snow on them and I was able to ride right over that and the mud was not too bad. Today was a different ride, 10 miles and it goes on the north side of a big bluff and that had about a half mile of intermittent walking because of the snow. It was too mushy to ride on with fat tires. It is in the high 30s but in the morning it will be frozen and much more ridable. I adjusted the grips and they are much better. It feels like this bike has weird geometry, like a Raleigh MTN bike I had in the 80s. The frame is very high. I can clear the top tube at the seat for a stand over height but the top tube has such an angle that you end out cracking yourself about in half at a tender spot. They only come in 17 and 19 inch sizes. I would guess that they would fit better at the upper end of the recommended height (depending on your leg length). The riding position of my 17 inch fits me perfectly right out of the box. On the flats the brakes work great but on steep downhills with a right angle turn at the bottom you have to be careful as I kept lifting the rear wheel (I can get use to this but you have to be careful not to go over on your head). I got stuck in mud about 3 inches deep, it just spun. I also went sideways in the mud, fat tires roll over stuff, but still get stuck and slide around. I was able to ride through quite a bit of soft snow, about a third of the snow cover was ridable and about a half mile wasn't (there were short places between the snow that were bare and ridable so it was mount and dismount for about 3 miles). There were also 5 trees that blew down over the trail this winter that caused me to dismount. I used different shoes today and adjusted the seat so my arches were centered on the platform pedals and only lost the pedal once. I have not ridden it enough to form any opinion good or bad. Most people I talk to are really enthused about fat bikes, love them. I am pretty ambivalent after riding a borrowed one this winter on the snow bike tails. I am not that impressed with fat bikes in general, so far. I plan to use it a lot more before I decide if it's for me. It did work great, smooth shifting, powerful braking, rolling over rocks, roots and packed snow, and smoothing out a very bumpy fast downhill section. The downside is the weight, I used lower gears and went slower up the hills. I like to scream up hills and fly over the whoop de dos on the short down section, but with a fat bike it is a little different set of skills and experience. There was no noticeable side to side wobble. The gyroscopic action of the front wheel got to be less and less of a problem the more I rode it and got used to it, by the end of the ride it was hardly noticeable. It was very well packed and arrived without a scratch.
 
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Keep an eye on the rear triangle. A guy on MTBR broke his frame already.

Amazing, can't see how he did this as it is beefy. That is what I don't like about aluminum, it doesn't give, it just snaps. In one of the take outs from a Danny Macaskill video he snapped his alloy handle bars in half jumping off a telephone booth. Good steel is better and lighter as it doesn't have to be over built to avoid catastrophic failure. Hopefully I will be OK as I only weigh 155. Bike companies have been doing a good job of selling as a load telling us aluminum is better and lighter. Aluminum is very easy to weld now with gas outside and inside the frame and the industrial methods to clean the welding surface. I like my old steel giant MB. The Quigley bike does have a nice steel like feel, probably because of the side to side give. I plan to mainly use it as a snow bike and that is real smooth sailing. Hopefully I won't bust it playing with it this summer. Thanks for the info.
 
I have been using 8 lbs pressure in the tires. There is no info available for recommended pressure for full suspension fat bikes. I tried 20 pounds today. It was much easier to pedal but went from bouncy to hoppy. It rides about as rough as my 29er when I put in 20 pounds pressure but it still goes over stuff better than the 29er. Next I will try 15 pounds and see if I can soften it up a little and still have easier pedaling. Liking it more and more. Since I fiddled with the position of the shifters they are easier to use with heavy mitts. The handle bars are nice for open country but too wide for single track in the woods. I'll start by measuring my other bars and cutting a little less off than on my other mountain bikes.
 
I like the "brakes are very adequate." phrase... inspires confidence. But you know what they say, if there ain't no pictures it didn't happen...

Carl.
 
Cool pic! Just a word of caution: there are 2 of these on MTBR. The rear swing arm on BOTH of them have broken at the same weld. I suggest checking it after every ride, or maybe getting your money back. Just looking out....
 
I sent bikes direct an email and they said they are aware of the Quigley problem and their advice is to ride the bike hard and if it cracks they will repair, replace or refund me. They are having the factory check out their quality control and materials for flaws. So far OK. I wonder if the failures were from heavy people that did downhill. We have those runs here, with 15 foot rock drops and 10 foot board ramp jumps but I stay off them. These are for people who started BMX when they were 6 and were the most talented. The rest of us just don't have the years of experience or natural ability of these young guys. Some of my 60 year old buddies have run these a time or two but that was enough for them.
 
I know that one of the guys rides hard, but I don't think the other does anything too crazy. Here is the thread: http://forums.mtbr.com/fat-bikes/gr...at-bike-964412-post11922298.html#post11922298
Thanks for the link. The trails are almost all open here so I should be able to test beat it this week. The ones I want to ride it on are all hand cut single track with no machine improvements. No real big drops but rough and twisty and there are fairly long sets of concrete stairs in the ghost town we ride up and down. I will only have a chance to use it on these trails once before we leave for over two weeks on vacation. When I am back I should be able to test beat it regularly. I mentioned my concern over the frame flex in my first post. The big wheels really add a lot of mass to try and control with a swing arm. I wish they would go back to good Chrmo steel tubing for these less expensive bike frames. It could flex all it wanted to and not break and most of us would not notice the flex. Aluminum doesn't like to flex, it likes to bust and I think most of them will bust from the flex.
 
Old retired guys should not be capable of busting the modern robust mountain bike technology. I am 70 years old and weigh 155 pounds. This summer I disintegrated the guts of a week old free hub. I took it apart to see why it stopped freewheeling and parts fell out. Yesterday I took my Quigley fat bike out for the 12th time since it was new and broke the rear triangle. I didn't use it except on fairly easy trails and last winter twice on the snow bike trails. I quit using it this spring because I didn't need it and it is heavy. Now we had 2.5 inches of rain and then it got cold. There is no snow and no ice but the trail dirt is frozen diamond hard. Yesterday I found some new trails I hadn't ridden on before and they are beyond rough. I had shoes with spikes on them incase there was ice and had a very hard time hauling the Quigley up. I think everyone rides down this mountain, but I wen't up. It has very narrow drops down the side of a frozen waterfall and a lot more like this. There is now way I could ever ride down this!! In one section I put my butt over the rear wheel and still did an endo. My head hit a tree and stopped me from going all the way over into the abyss. This trail is all rock and boulders and I just let the bike go over most of it. I think it was the rough trail, hard ground and the below freezing temperatures that did it in. I took it down two downhill runs this spring but I got very little air on the jumps, mostly just did wheelies over the table tops. It still should not have broken, people ride way harder than me. Chromoly weighs less than aluminum, even aluminum handle bars and it doesn't break. They recommend replacing MB aluminum and carbon fiber handlebars every two years and titanium bars every 5 years. Cromo bars have no replacement guidelines and weigh less than aluminum or titanium. When will everyone wake up. I think they are making a lot of expensive poor design stuff. Another of my retired riding buddies bought a very expensive custom mountain bike that is guaranteed forever. Good thing as he has broken handle bars and cracked hubs. Another 65 year old guy in my group also busted the rear triangle on his alloy frame. On the other hand my 80 year old Klunker frames have never broken. The only problem I have with my klunkers are flats. If I don't use at least 30 pounds of pressure I get pinch flats. I am going to go tubeless next summer on one of them and see if I can soften the ride with 20 pounds.
 
Bummer you broke the Quigley, but honestly, I'm not surprised. Bikes direct will take care of you though. Glad you didn't get hurt doing that endo!
 
Your self steering issue is definitely due to the VEE8 tires, they are junk. The y came stock on my Motobecane Boris and once I checnged to One ONE Floaters, it handled like a nimble 29er.
 
Your self steering issue is definitely due to the VEE8 tires, they are junk. The y came stock on my Motobecane Boris and once I checnged to One ONE Floaters, it handled like a nimble 29er.

That's good to know. It is much worse with 4-5 pounds of pressure for the snow. I need knobbies as I lose traction on climbs in the snow that everyone else sails through. I'll have to look and see what they are using. Some of them are much wider than what I have, but I am not interested in these extreme widths. I did get to ride a $4100 23 pound carbon fat bike during our solstice ride that another rider was kind enough to let me try. It was like riding nothing.
 
Vee 8's can be great tires....they're awesome for the application I use them for...I've got a set on my Origin8 Crawler and ride a 50/50 mix on either asphalt or sand...I air them up to 25psi on road/hardpack and down to 12-15 on the deep sugar sand we have here and they're great.
 
Vee 8's can be great tires....they're awesome for the application I use them for...I've got a set on my Origin8 Crawler and ride a 50/50 mix on either asphalt or sand...I air them up to 25psi on road/hardpack and down to 12-15 on the deep sugar sand we have here and they're great.
The problem is we use 4-5 pounds for snow. They do work well when I air them up for a cruse on the bike path. The less air the worse they handle. I rode with a bunch of snow bikers yesterday (no snow here then) and some use Nates, some use different brands on the front and rear. I have to ask more riders as there newer tires out there now. Looking for something that works in the winter and can still be used a little in the summer.
 
Bummer you broke the Quigley, but honestly, I'm not surprised. Bikes direct will take care of you though. Glad you didn't get hurt doing that endo!
It was kind of a strange endo. In the past I went all the way over or up and over to the side. On this one I balanced straight up on my front wheel for a second and tipped over slowly a short way until my head came to rest on a tree, still almost straight up. I just stayed there with the brakes locked until I could figure out how to dismount without tumbling down the rest off the steep hill. It was a strange one.
 
I dismantled the Quigley, it only took about 15 minutes. Some of the parts appear to be cheaply built like the stamped front derailleur. The rear triangle pivot is very stiff, there can't be a bearing in there, its got to be a bushing. Is this typical? My specialized non fatty has bearings in the rear triangle. I wonder what is in there?
 

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