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On a fat bike you can air down to 5 psi or so.

They are all about flotation. Also with the size of tires, diameter and width, you can roll over all kinds of stuff without an issue.

Brent,

Your right about designated wilderness areas within the USFS. Bikes are considered mechanized transport and not allowed. However, the USFS and BLM around here have been drafting travel management plans which have been closing roads and two tracks in non wilderness areas that are open to "non-motorized" travel. Bikes included.

The fat tire bike seem to float over mud that my mountian bike sinks in to...

Check out Surly Bikes. They make several Fat Bikes. The frames are made Taiwan, seem to have a good reputation. I have a LHT I bought as a complete bike and I am building an Ogre.
www.surlybikes.com

Or Salsa, Surly's sister company.

http://fat-bike.com/2012/08/first-look-salsa-fat-bikes-for-2013/

Mine is a Mukluk 2, 2012. If you google it the pic I posted earlier shows up

My wife likes the Pugsley. I didn't realize how diverse (and expensive) the bike market was until I started to look for a bike now that rucking and running aren't part of my conditioning program.

Are you close to Golden?
A shop there lets you test ride and rent fat bikes.

The pugs is a steel offset frame a little shorter length like a mtn bike.

The mukluk is an aluminum frame 170 rear 135 front. It is a bit longer for great stability in sand/snow and a little harder to work as a mtn bike.

They are all good. I grin like a 12 year old on it.

I'm in the Springs.
I can't justify another bike plus I'm still picking up parts for the Ogre frameset I just bought. If I do get another bike it'll be a roadbike for the wife.

It seems that these bikes all (or almost all) lack suspensions. is that because the speed is assumed to be slow and the tires soft or because they don't work mechanically with suspensions for some reason?

There are some custom squishey fat bikes.

The bikes are a low production heavy bike. Suspension adds more weight and extreme cost due to low production numbers. There are only 2 suspension forks that work with the fat tires and both are out of production if I remember right.

You can get a custom full squish rig but the price will reflect it.

We can adjust the psi in the tires to fit the riding conditions and this works pretty well under most conditions.

Besides, they are a heck of a lot of fun the way the are.

oops

I'm far from an expert, but I'm thinking there just isn't much call for a full suspension fat bike. They seem like they occupy a small niche right now.

This is pretty interesting to me. I used to race road bikes so I like bikes that are thin, light, fast and COMPLETELY different. But that was then and this is now. This looks really really useful to me.

I asked earlier about using that trailer and braking downhill. I don't think anyone answered but is it "challenging" or do those trailers have surge brakes or something like that to avoid being overrun by a trailer with a mulie on it?

It most likely would be a problem with a mulie on the trailer. Definitely a problem with a cow on the trailer.

I don't know about the trailers, but when somebody figures out how to do it they might have a market.

Well that photo a few pages back shows someone has figure it out.

Quercus rotundus, I was looking for folks with actual experience. Not internet expertise

Bcolorado
You seem like you know something about bikes. I'm just getting into them somewhat. Can't see getting to seriously into mountain biking though. I've already broke enough bones.

I have a couple road bikes, old classics, a cross bike with studded tires that I used in N Dakota for winter riding, an old mtn bike set up for town riding that will be retired, a classic touring frame that will be built up this winter and the fat bike.

Kind of like having different rifles for different game.

My knees are shot from too many years working construction and this is a form of exercise I can do. Besides, it makes you feel like a kid again.

Not hauling animals, but have toured with a Surly Long Haul Trucker and a trailer.

No added brakes. It can get hairy. I tour with panniers mostly now, so it isn't an issue, but I wouldn't want to go downhill fast with anything heavy on a trailer behind me, even with good disk brakes.