As the winter snows give way to spring flowers, fat bikes remain relevant tools for ripping singletrack but with limitations due to the weight and low pressure of those big monster tires. A simple but costly modification can turn some fat bikes into summertime trail rippers known as 29+. Our contributor Steve Graepel swapped out his fat tires for 29+ on his Salsa Mukluk, a modification that creates a huge 31-inch outer diameter. This is his experience.

Last year, Surly released the beastly Krampus, a monster trail bike engineered around a 3” tire paired with the brand’s 50mm Rabbit Hole rims. Neither fat nor a 29er, the Krampus was an ode to speed in the golden age of fat. Surly crowned it a “29+” bike.

Keenly interested in riding my Salsa Mukluk into summer, I was already browsing a second set of wheels for my fat bike. I knew it could accommodate 29” (a fat tire sitting on a 26” fat rim reaches 29” size), but I was all-in when Salsa blogged that the Mukluk could fit a 29+.
*While it fits, the crew at Salsa does not endorse pairing of a 29+ wheelset with its Mukluk; the bike’s geometry is not formally designed to match the height offset.







