As part of our Year-End Rider's Survey, we polled The Nxrth readers with several questions about bike adventures. Questions about racing vs exploring and gravel biking verses winter snow biking.
One of questions that I was eager to ask that has been burning on my mind is whether the correct spelling is "fatbike" or "fat bike".
Here were your answers based on 138 responses:
In my mind, I've simply always used "fatbike". I've considered it a compound word and despite the fact that autocorrect virtually always says it's wrong, it's a hill I've been willing to die on.
Fatbike vs Fat Bike: What Bike Brands Use
This was a landslide in favor of "Fat Bike". I actually thought there would be a few more brands using "Fatbike" but I had a hard time finding very many at all and the three on this list were the only bike brands I could find using "Fatbike". The list of brands using "Fat Bike" is way longer and includes many more than those on this list.
*One interesting note is that Salsa is an anomaly who calls it "Fat Tire Bike" while their sister brand, 45NRTH, calls it "Fat Bike". But this partially makes sense since 45NRTH is a major player in the tires industry and if they stayed consistent with Salsa, then they would always be saying "fat tire bike tire" which just feels silly so instead they're always using "fat bike tire" to refer to their tires.
Brands that spell it "Fat Bike"
Trek
Borealis
Framed
Otso
Surly
Canyon
Why Cycles
Norco
Giant
Moots
Many more...
Brands that spell it "Fatbike"
Kona
Motobecane
Felt
Brands that use them interchangeably
Corvus Cycles
[Bonus] Brands that call it "Fat Tire Bike"
Salsa
[Bonus] Brands that call it "Fat-Tire Bike
Co-op Cycles (REI)
So which will it be, Fatbike or Fat Bike?
The bike industry clearly favors "Fat Bike" while our sample of riders only slightly prefer "Fat Bike" over "Fatbike". From a search engine optimization perspective, even a slight user preference for "Fat Bike" would mean that all marketers might consider using that spelling as well in order to try to win search traffic despite there being less competition for the search term "Fatbike".
Personally, I plan on continuing to use "Fatbike". Maybe it's just a bad habit. Or maybe it's because I did an ambassadorship with one of the only brands, Kona, that calls it "Fatbike". One thing I know for a fact, is that I won't be calling it Fat Tire Snow Biking. I prefer having our own word "fatbike" rather than just modifying "bike" by using "fat" as an adjective. Does it really matter? No, not at all really. So call it whatever you want and maybe we'll check back in next year to see if the naming convention has shifted.
