When it comes to fat bikes, the weight of the wheels is often discussed. Some bike companies prefer to make heavy wheels, claiming it's necessary, but we at ICAN want you to enjoy your ride, so we've designed and manufactured several lightweight fat bike wheels.

Lightweight Design

When you go mountain biking, you are forced to ride with many small accelerations and decelerations. Every time you do this, you will be very aware of your wheel's weight. Accelerating a fat bike out of a technical trail will carry a lot of extra weight, and you'll quickly become very fatigued. Making it lighter will make this more enjoyable. Later in this article, we will go over some summer wheels for fat bikes. Wheels for roosting around dry summer trails on a fat bike are a lot of fun.

The lightweight wheels are constructed from Toray T700 carbon fiber. Using carbon fiber not only allows us to build a lighter wheel, but it also enables us to tune the ride quality of the wheel rim. A good set of carbon fiber wheels will be very stiff side to side when pedaling and compliant vertically to bumps.

The stiffness of the wheel and lack of side-to-side movement also means that as soon as you pedal, your rear wheel is already starting to move. This makes acceleration a bit easier and more energy-efficient than before.

Affordable Carbon Fat Bike Wheels

One of the reasons many people don't buy carbon fiber rims or wheels is that they were not traditionally affordable. We are looking to change that. We are factory direct. There are no distributors or other middlemen looking to profit from our wheels. Going straight from the factory floor offers you a significant saving over comparable big brand products.

Here are some of ICAN's wheels:

26er Carbon 90mm Fat Bike Wheelset 90c

As you can tell from the title, we didn't come up with a cool marketing name for the wheelset. We named it precisely to make it easy for you to buy a wheelset if you're buying a Carbon 90mm Fat Bike Wheelset 90c.

You are getting a fat bike wheel that is 90mm wide and 26" in diameter. As you can tell, the rims are constructed from carbon fiber, Toray T700. We use Toray T700 as it allows us to incorporate all the above qualities that you want in a carbon fiber wheelset.

What you might not realize from the name is that the rims on these wheels are hookless. Hookless rims make tubeless a bit easier, and you'll want tubeless on a fat bike to help. Hookless technology is the same as you find on car and motorcycle wheels. It is simply a different method for the tire to clinch the rim.

26er Carbon Fat Bike Wheelset 65c

Given what you've learned about the 26er Carbon 90mm Fat Bike Wheelset 90c, I'm sure you can figure out what the 26er Carbon Fat Bike Wheelset 65c wheel is. It is another set of hookless tubeless-ready carbon fiber fat bike wheels. Just like the wheels above, they are constructed from Toray T700 carbon fiber.

For the 65mm rim width, we recommend using tires from 3.8" to 4.6" wide. For our 90mm rims, we recommend using tires from 4.0" to 5.0" wide. Our 90mm rims are better for those who want to spend a lot of time in snow or sand, whereas our 65mm rims are good for all-around trails and exploring forgotten areas off the beaten track.

One of the reasons to build rims out of carbon fiber is for weight savings. Our 90c fat bike rim weighs 675g. Compare this to a Surly Rolling Darryl, which is 8mm narrower and weighs 850g, or a narrower Halo Tundra at 870g. You can see why we've used carbon over alloy.

Outward from the carbon fiber rim, both of these wheelsets come with CN round spokes laced to Powerway M74 hubs. The M74 is a good sealed bearing hub that will provide long life and performance at an affordable price. The M74 hubs also come with either a Shimano freehub or a SRAM XD driver. Both come with a front hub with a 15 x 150 mm thru-axle system, and for the rear, you can choose from 12 x 190 or 197mm.

With our build, we can build a front wheel at 1113g, while a comparable Halo build would weigh 1355g. The rear wheel weighs 1303g, and the Halo rear wheel weighs 1530g. That's about 0.5kg of weight saved on your bike's wheels.

Summer Fat Bike Wheels

These wheels will definitely bring speed and great weight savings to your fat bike, but what if you live in a place that gets baked during the summer? The trails are super dry, and you kick up clouds of dust behind you as you carve around, and you need to lather up with sunscreen before heading out?

The secret to having a great summer day on a fat bike is to convert it to a plus-size trail monster for the summer. Some fat bikes can take 29ers plus, and some can take 27.5" plus. Either way, it will be a lot of fun. You'll get a bike that feels very different from its winter guise and is also excellent for sliding around berms. For 50mm wide rims, we recommend tires that are between 2.8" and 3.1" wide.

27.5er 50mm Fat Bike Wheelset

As you might guess, the 27.5er 50mm Fat Bike Wheelset is the wheels to convert your fat bike into a 27.5" (650b) plus trail bike. Just like the fat bike wheels, the rims are constructed using Toray T700 carbon fiber and feature a hookless tubeless design.

29er 50mm Fat Bike Wheelset

The 29er 50mm Fat Bike Wheelset is the 29er version of the wheelset above. Just like the wider fat bike wheels, these wheels come with Powerway M74 hubs and CN round spokes. In that case, they have the same axle widths, and you can choose between a Shimano freehub or a SRAM XD driver.

The main reason to change to these wheels in the summer is the huge reduction in rotating weight. You'll not only save weight on the wheels, but you'll also save weight on the tires. You'll save enough weight to really notice the difference.

One of the things you'll lose is a little float, but in the summer, you probably don't worry about riding on snow and want to ride those hard-packed trails. Plus-sized tires will make your bike feel more lively and help you twist and turn your way through more technical turns.

Instead of using the bulldozer approach that works so well when riding a fat bike, you can be more artful in your line choice. You can flow in and out of the berms. You'll flow the trail instead of just straight lining the downhill sections.