I’ve got a Salsa MukLuk carbon bike with a carbon fork. Thinking of upgrading to a suspension fork and dropper post with internal routing which would run about $1K. It opens up the possibility of riding sandier lesser used trails as the single track gets crowded. Are these worthwhile upgrades.
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Re: Fat bike upgrades [roubaixman]
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Personally, a dropper is worth it if the trails you ride are steep and/or technical. I love my dropper and wouldn't ride singletrack without it, but I don't have a dropper or a suspension fork on my fattie.
If the fat bike is your only offroad bike and you don't plan on getting a mtb, then sure, a suspension fork and dropper make the fat bike much more capable. My fat bike is mostly for winter. For winter the suspension fork is totally unnecessary, and most droppers don't work here in the winter.
The bluto is meh. It's okay but will be significantly heavier than your mukluk fork.
If the fat bike is your only offroad bike and you don't plan on getting a mtb, then sure, a suspension fork and dropper make the fat bike much more capable. My fat bike is mostly for winter. For winter the suspension fork is totally unnecessary, and most droppers don't work here in the winter.
The bluto is meh. It's okay but will be significantly heavier than your mukluk fork.
Re: Fat bike upgrades [roubaixman]
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My first fatbike was a Fatboy with a rigid fork and I explored all over and had a great time, but after a while, I really wished that I had suspension. When I bought a second one so my son could ride with me, I bought a Motobecane with Bluto. Even on a fat bike, suspension just made everything better. And worrying about weight on a fat bike is just silly. Worrying about weight on any bike is silly but certainly on a fat bike. I used to go on fat bike boards on mtbr and just stopped because they were all obsessed with weight there.
I've never used a dropper post, but imagine they would be nice if you did super technical stuff. Before fat, I never felt all that confident to do that stuff, but those monster tires give a lot of confidence.
You do need to think about how the fat bike was designed. I don't think the Moto was designed for a 120mm fork so the geo is excessively slack. I make up for it by just running it with low psi eat up some of the travel with sag.
I've never used a dropper post, but imagine they would be nice if you did super technical stuff. Before fat, I never felt all that confident to do that stuff, but those monster tires give a lot of confidence.
You do need to think about how the fat bike was designed. I don't think the Moto was designed for a 120mm fork so the geo is excessively slack. I make up for it by just running it with low psi eat up some of the travel with sag.
If I could only have one I'd go with a dropper as that's (IMO) more useful in the Winter. Just don't get a reverb - somewhat notorious for not playing in cold temps.
I don't think a squishy fork is necessary but would encourage you to look at the Manitou Mastodon and the Wren forks - I do like the short travel Lauf forks too but primarily run my Salsa Kingpin fork year round and have a set of 29+ wheels for bikepacking as my Borealis Crestone has been my primary bikepacking rig for the time being. Sort of a tangent there but if you have one of the newer mukluks with the kingpin deluxe fork you could probably swap straight up (or add very little) for either of the "better" forks as they're pretty damn popular.
I don't think a squishy fork is necessary but would encourage you to look at the Manitou Mastodon and the Wren forks - I do like the short travel Lauf forks too but primarily run my Salsa Kingpin fork year round and have a set of 29+ wheels for bikepacking as my Borealis Crestone has been my primary bikepacking rig for the time being. Sort of a tangent there but if you have one of the newer mukluks with the kingpin deluxe fork you could probably swap straight up (or add very little) for either of the "better" forks as they're pretty damn popular.