Vee Tire has quietly made a new fat bike tire available to the public and it is going to raise a lot of eyebrows in the fatty world. It is called the Snowshoe 2XL and the listed size is 26 x 5.05 inches. The crazy part is, it is even bigger than the listed size on 100mm rims! I snagged a pair of the 120 tpi version as soon as I saw that they were available but from the packaging it looks like they will offer a 72 tpi version as well.

For those interested in the numbers:

Bead-to-bead: 298mm

5.1-5.2″ wide on Clownshoe rims (100mm)

Diameter: 31 1/4″

Weights for my two tires: 1,823 and 1,779g (published weight of 1,740g)

Knob height: 7-8mm

It is important to note that these tires are MASSIVE! Below is a picture of a Surly Lou mounted on a Clownshoe compared to the Snowshoe 2XL on the same rim:

The Lou that is shown has been in service for about a year and a half now and has been set up tubeless the whole time so it is as big and stretched out as it is going to get and it still looks tiny compared to the 2XLs which were freshly mounted and at the same pressure (all measurements were taken at approximately 10psi). When I measured the width of each, the 2XL was around a half an inch wider than the Big Fat Knard, Bud and Lou. To give a perspective on the size of the casing, here is a pic of the Bud and 2XL unmounted:

The tread design looks very promising with a similar knob height to the Bud/Lou, a nice open tread design to shed snow and lots of sipping and edges to bite in and provide great traction. The tread is also a really nice width compared to the casing with well supported side knobs. They even provided a lot of serrated edges on the knobs to create more biting edges.

The overall shape of the tire is nice and round but looks like it will flatten out nicely in soft conditions and low pressures to provide some great traction.

For now I have them mounted up with tubes on my tandem for some beach riding. I plan to test out how they go tubeless in the near future and will also try to fit test them in other bikes. It is going to be tough to find frames and forks that fit this tire. The width is substantial but I think the height of the tire will be even more limiting in a lot of frames. It just fits in the rear of my tandem and once the tire stretches some I doubt it will have enough clearance. Good thing I made sure Scotty Q at Quiring Cycles got a pair of these tires also! There is going to be a new single fat bike in my near future built around these bad boy tires!

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