If nobody owns the name

corky

New member
Hi Mainly

yeah I guess we're both dealing in sweeping generalisations.... still a healthy (and interesting) debate eh?

just come back from a spin in the spring sunshine here.... I know why I love my Yo :p
 

MikeNZ

New member
little change here - it remains

Beautiful discussion and most have said their peace very nicely. What it comes down to for me and most others is ride although the cool factor is in there and does have an impact. But do any of you really want to hang out with let alone ride with someone who bought a bike solely for the cool factor? I doubt it. Back in the day most of those types of people were buying Kleins or Cannondales if they couldnt afford the former.

Anyway I own a wicked and have had three. I also own an IF deluxe. When it came time to have a custom single speed made I took my wicked frame to my local builder and said, "can you make me a cool, lugged single speed just like this"? So he made me a columbus max tubing ss with eccentric BB. Yep it rides just like my Wicked but much less forgiving. It kicks my ass when Im tired or out of shape but also accelerates and goes where I point it much faster than the wicked. Tight twisty single track is all I want.

If I want to go out and jump, ride some wide open rutted fire roads and play around without paying too much attention to speed and precision then I ride my IF Deluxe.

I dont think there is much money in resurrecting the brand but there probably is opportunity in spec'ing a high end steel hardtail in Taiwan and building a new brand around it.

My two cents and we should probably all just shup and ride.


yeah I guess we're both dealing in sweeping generalisations.... still a healthy (and interesting) debate eh?

just come back from a spin in the spring sunshine here.... I know why I love my Yo :p
 

colker

Well-known member
I like this thread. The posts are well-thought out and pose good arguments on both sides. All opinions are welcome, and I think its great Colker didn't like his Yo. He's a rider with a style anyone else, and I think its great he posts about it. I have never ridden a Fat, mine are still in the resto process, so I realize my comments aren't worth as much.

But from the sideline, it seems if there was a resurgence of FCC, then all the existing frames would lose their appeal. FCC had an attitude. I grew up and raced on the east coast US and I know all about it. When I moved west, we banded together and called ourselves "east coast hardcore," and cherished our steep head angles, even though they were worthless here in the land of fast, buffed singletrack. FCC was all about the attitude. The original fat cogs were tattoed, rigid, and stoned. I dont think you could replicate that, and IMHO, using the Fat name to sell frames that arent Fats would just be, well, wrong.

Again, thats just my $.02

AAAAHH! i love my wicked and want a yo! i am not the one who did not like it!! LOL..
 

colker

Well-known member
First, I am known as jerk on most forums I participate on. That said I do not believe I have done anything to anyone here - yet. Maybe he knows me from another forum!

Second, I love my Yo. It is being restored as I type this. I will post pics when it comes back from the painter - supposedly Monday! Anyone got any purple anodized parts they need to get rid of?

Third, custom is pretty great. My second bike is a custom steel built around Yo geometry but suspension corrected and the seattube a degree steeper for my bad knees. It is fillet brazed not welded which I wanted. Also, it is nice to know the builder is choosing tubing for my weight, riding style, local conditions, etc. I also got some artistic touches by the builder. It is hard to go wrong with custom if you choose a reputable builder.

I would have bought a non-custom but good steel frames are expensive no matter how you slice it. Custom seemed like a good deal for the money actually. I made my final decision based on being comfortable with the builder. I ride my bike all the time and I think I made a good decision. I also think any of you who like steel hardtails would agree it is a pretty nice bike.

Fourth, carbon bikes are pretty nice. I know whoever said it was joking, but a carbon bike with Yo geometry would be a good bike. As to ride characteristics, I find correct fork settings and the right headtube angle covers the front end feeling pretty good. As for the BB and rear end hardtails can be tricky. That said I do not see any reason a carbon frame could not be made to ride very nicely and weigh 600 grams less than a steel bike. Builders are always working on new stuff and one will make it happen.

And fifth, I agree that this is a good thread.


That is all I have to say for now.

sorry. i was the one here who acted like a jerk. i had no right to be aggressive and just had the wrong perspective on your post. sorry again.:)
 

scant

New member
Hi All :)

This topic has been discussed at length before. The moral high ground of another company using someone elses previous brand name. In this instance FAT chance.

Maybe its just my viewpoint, but if I saw another company using the FAT chance name I'd assume it was for financial reasons IE. responding to a uncatered niche in the market place & not for the love of a cherished bygone brand. imitation NOT being the sincerest form of flattery in this case. I thought this for some time...

... However since jeff@ firstflight restarted mountain goat its got me thinking. again this is just my viewpoint:
1, Any recreation of a brand should have the full blessing of the original owners. I dont care if all the patents & brand logos under the sun have expired; its totally bad form to take somebody elses lifes work & call it your own (espically for a FAsT buck; pun intended)
2, The quality should be representative of previous work. fairly certain that the new mountain goats are built by sycip as a good example. seeing a 2009 budget tiawanese steel "Yo! eddy" would literally be a crying shame.
3, any new models should be totally inkeeping with previous company brand recognition. IE I wouldnt want to see breezer dropouts or yeti curved stays on a 2009 yo eddy. sure single speeds, dirt jump frames, 29ers etc, etc would have been probable later FAT models have FAT stayed open, but dont make the brand unrecogniseable from its origins.

I massively appreciate how utterly biased I am towards FAT & for that I can only apologise. My reasons are purely selfish, I appreciate theres a LOT of love still out there for FAT & I, like several others I dont want to see "cheap, poor quality knock-offs".

as a side note I've never taken employment or wages as a view to level of bike ownership. luckily bikes are relatively cheap (compared to cars, etc) & when I see anyone with a expensive bike I just assume they like bikes :)
 

lucifer

New member
I just want to clarify a few things for any potential newbies.

1. An IF is not a fat. Especially not a recently built IF. No one who currently works at IF ever worked at fat chance (to the best of my knowledge) a couple of the machines may have seen service at FCC.

2. You could theoretically have a custom bike built to FCC specs and it would be close but not exactly the same. I highly doubt there is any of the original TT tubing left over. Also you would have to find someone willing to spin the stay ends, find the right dropouts etc.

3. Following along from pt. 2 it was the little things about fats that made them appealing to me. It was the untapered stays and awesome tire clearance, the domed stay ends and rock solid dropouts, the toothpick, the short headtubes, the unique colors, etc etc etc.

To me those little extras were what made the frames so desirable. It was those extra steps they took to differentiate themselves in a unique and cool way. Like others have said however it was definitely a product of its time. Today it would be considered way too low tech for the price that all that labor requires. Apparently mountain bikers today want high tech whiz bang never feel a trail irregularity carbon wunderbikes.... which begs the question, Why not just ride on the road? >;)
 

scant

New member
lucifer, things may have changed in 2yrs, but last time I spoke to Joe Ingram @ IF he told me that the FAT chance painter was still working there.
 

colker

Well-known member
maybe all the Fat guys left Lucifer.. but IF proudly displays the fact they are the descendants of FCC.
otoh i agree those IF stays couldn't be more different than Fat and there is a fat chance anyone could reproduce them today.
the official story says chance left the building alone for saratoga while the crew kept welding bikes under the IF name. the first IFs were almost exact copies of yo eddies.
 

corky

New member
maybe all the Fat guys left Lucifer.. but IF proudly displays the fact they are the descendants of FCC.
otoh i agree those IF stays couldn't be more different than Fat and there is a fat chance anyone could reproduce them today.
the official story says chance left the building alone for saratoga while the crew kept welding bikes under the IF name. the first IFs were almost exact copies of yo eddies.

They were basically Yo Eddy's but with slimmer top tubes and seat stays..... to give a commfier ride, apparently that was what the FCC staff used to have when they built frames for themselves. The pizootie flange/gusset and toothpick were dropped as well. After a while the TT tubing was dropped in favour of reynolds, if I recall correctly. If's are still a wonderful ride IME.....
 

mainlyfats

Member
Dropped gusset?

They were basically Yo Eddy's but with slimmer top tubes and seat stays..... to give a commfier ride, apparently that was what the FCC staff used to have when they built frames for themselves. The pizootie flange/gusset and toothpick were dropped as well. After a while the TT tubing was dropped in favour of reynolds, if I recall correctly. If's are still a wonderful ride IME.....

Hmmmm... My FC Team and IF Deluxe SS both have down tube gussets. Are those what you're talking about?

O.K. I'm going to take one more kick at this can and see if I get things going in a different direction. I'm not now, nor have I ever really been, talking about the actual differences between the bikes (love them both) or the differences between the companies. They are completely different in every way to me (except of course for Lloyd Graves!) and almost don't bear comparison. As I said before: apples and oranges.

What I'm trying to get my head around is the perception of the Fat City Cycles brand, the value that brand may have in today's marketplace and who, if anyone, would be interested in taking a stab at drawing blood from the FCC stone.

There are what? 600 of us (120 or so "regular" contributors) and no doubt many more who lurk but don't post. Many of us, regardless of our income or level of education, put a huge heaping whack of our disposable income into bikes and (except for Yo Eddy! and his Miyata issue) a big chunk goes to Fat stuff or to companies in the Fat family tree.

What's it worth? Rody's making stickers. Someone else is making hoodies and t's on Cafe Press. Original BOI's are a grand, so Waltworks, Inglehart and others are making repros for $300-ish. Yos are now going for almost as much as they cost new if they're in good shape. How long before someone clues in that there's gold in them thar hills and that it can be tapped and - perhaps more importantly legally protected - if you OWN THE BRAND?
 

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corky

New member
The 'dropped' gusset was the one between the seat stays and seat tube junction not the down-tube.... think it was called a pizootie or something.....just for clarification:p
 

Doug Carter

Moderator
Staff member
Hey guys, great topic. While I'm FATless now, and riding only road, it's good to see this bantered about.


Here's my feelings, in no particular order...


Fat was never "a bike of the people." Sure, it had a strong, cult following, but my Yo Eddy frame in 1993 was over $1100. That's not really accessible by a lot of enthusiasts, unless they have a lot of disposable income and are kind of soft in the head. :D It was elitist and snobbish before elitism and snobism was en vogue.

I don't ever want to see the Fat City brand come back, unless it was Chris Chance wielding the torch. That's the only way I would buy one, or even be happy to see them in production again. Brands born out of ashes rarely can live up to the original mystique. Ok, Swobo was cool then and cool now, but it's an anomoly. I think the resurrection of Mountain Got is cool, too, but to me, it took a lot of the buzz away from the original coveted bikes. I don't want to see that aura dulled for Fat Chance bikes, too.

In the mid 80s, Tamiya released a plethora of neat little R/C vehicles, and they are forever ingrained into the hearts of people my age. In the last year, Tamiya re-released these kits in identical formats, not only killing the collector market for old cars and parts, but really putting a haze over the memories you had of how cool those little cars were. Twenty years later, we look at them now and realize how crappy they really were, or how far off of technology they are now.




I think we all have the same appreciation for the finer things in life, and that's one of the reasons why we were drawn to Fat. The company is gone, and what they did in their lifespan was strong enough to still have a following of fans like this 10 years later. But I don't want to see the name soiled by anyone trying to capitalize on the history and name. Unless CC decides to have another crack at it, it makes a mess of everything we know Fat Chance bikes to be.




R.I.P. Fat City Cycles.





doug
 

Bssc

New member
A few Fat refugees still remain at Fat the general attitude is still quite similar at the IF shop. IF still does lots of grassroots support for racers just as Fat did. IF has the same rabid fans who pay big money for old clothing just like Fat fans.

High end hard tail sales are growing and have never slowed at IF. The 29ers are becoming the next big boom here in NE along with SS for racing and hard core riding.
 
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