Just about a bike: Specialized Fuse 6Fattie [UPDATED]

The archives here at rockychrysler.com never lie.  A quick glance at them and you'll see: I haven't written a Just about a bike blog post about any of my bikes since July 2016.  That's kind of a shame.  Honestly, it is.  Because I still have a few fun bikes that I haven't told you about yet.

I'll admit, there was a period of time there, beginning around fall of 2016, where I had very little to say about anything here on the old blog-space.  For lots of reasons.  So I mostly didn't.  I put up a scant 20 posts from 2016 through 2020.  Truth is, it has been quite a while since I really felt inspired to sit down and write... So I am quite pleased to report that the mood to write has resurfaced somewhat, and that a few ideas have popped into my head of late.

We'll start with something simple: my "new" bike, a first-generation 2018 Specialized Fuse Expert 6Fattie hardtail.  Really, it's called a 6Fattie?  Yep. An unfortunate marketing misstep, calling a bike, even a mid-fat (or anything other than an ample blunt), a 6Fattie, isn't it? I think so (and I'm pretty sure Specialized came to think so eventually, too.  They dropped the word "fattie" for the second generation bikes).  I've always assumed it's intended as a riff, a kind of portmanteau in fact, on the bike's stock wheel/tire size: 650b hoops, 40mm rims, and 3.0" tubeless mid-fat tires, which is, for sure, a bit on the portly side of things... right where I always like my wheels and tires to be!  And it's really for the best not to hold its somewhat unfortunate moniker against it, 'cause, in a nutshell, I'm here to tell ya, the Specialized Fuse 6Fattie rocks!

For the record: I like the Reba fork that came on the bike and haven't ever felt the need to upgrade it. It's maybe not as supple and active as my Fox forks, but it does the job just fine. Many riders scorned the stock press-fit bottom bracket, said it was of poor quality and made lots of noise, but it's performed well for me, and never did make too much noise. On occasion it would tick like metronome a bit, but a drop of Triflow at the top of the shell/cup interface always stopped it from recurring. In the end, however, it did require replacement with another OEM unit... at about 3000 miles (the nylon cups were fully played out), which I think is a decent duration for any nonserviceable bottom bracket.  I put a new chain, cassette, and a chainring on at about 3500 miles (bit of a challenge finding a new ring for the obscure Sram/Specialized cranks that were original spec).  Buncha worn-out tire changes over the years, Specialized Butchers and Purgagorys mostly (I'm sold on the handling their proprietary Grid sidewalls provide), always tubeless 3.0s and I've had zero, that's right, zero flats (running at 15/18 psi front/rear) with this setup. And the Avid DB3 brakes have worked consistently and reliably for me, too, with only periodic bleeding, just to keep things fresh. Pretty standard stuff for a bike that gets ridden. Overall, the 2017 Fuse has been a very problem-free bike.

Strava says I've put almost 4000 miles on this bike since I bought it new (for full-pop retail, by the way) from Absolute Bikes it in 2017.  It's not the only bike I ride these days, but I do ride it a lot, especially if I want to go on a big mileage ride, or, better yet, keep up with my younger, fitter, faster friends on any kind of ride.  The Fuse isn't a weight weenie, it tips the scale at just over 28 pounds, but it spins up singletrack and rips down gnarly trails in a very nimble, capable, and thoroughly confidence-inspiring way. It hops good, manuals well, and rails corners tipped onto its ample sidewalls like a beast. It's by far the longest, lowest slackest bike I've ever owned.  And (likely because of that) it's also one of the most fun to ride! The stock dropper-post, my first, has been seriously life-changing, too.

I hear lots of manufacturers are growing disenchanted with the whole mid-fat bike thing.  I think that's too bad.  There's something kinda Goldilock's porridge about bikes like the Fuse, ya know... I think they're "just right" for a whole lot of riding. I've ridden this bike all over the Colorado Plateau region, on a wide variety of terrain types, rides of all distances, long climbing rides, fast descending rides, ledgy slickrock, loamy singletrack, moondust, chunk. fire road, goopy mud, and even a fair amount of snow and ice.  And I can safely say, with the exception of super-steep rubbly ascents, which are always a sufferfest no matter what bike you're riding, but are even moreso on the long-low-slack geo of the Fuse, there's really nothing in the whole wide world (in my experience) that this bike doesn't excel at.  It really is that good.  And not just for a hardtail.  It's a truly great all-around mountain bike, regardless.

UPDATE: August 2023

Just a picture of my Fuse on the day/ride when it turned over 5000 Strava-miles... Still love this bike!

UPDATE: September 2023

Upgraded the front fork to a brand-new 140mm Fox 34 Grip2 with 44mm of rake.  Took me a couple weeks of fiddling to get it just-right. But after significant test riding and recalibrating, I'm here to say: It's amazing! 

Also did my best to carry off a little freehand paint-work in order to recast the model name of the bike as Fusée which I'm pretty sure means "rocket" in French and therefore is a way better name for it than Fuse. Gotta say, despite not being a person who ever illustrates things by hand, I'm not displeased with how it came out.

Fusée means "rocket" in French