After almost a decade, this fat-tyred Trek Equinox is still one of the most striking builds we’ve ever seen.
Created by Drew Wilson of Cyclocarbon, the bike brings together the unholy marriage of fat-bike tyres and time-trial aero.
Utilising his profession as a carbon frame repairer, Wilson altered a Trek Equinox frame to fit 3.8in-wide Surly Black Floyd tyres and even custom-made carbon tri-spoke wheels.
While we have seen a move to increasingly wide tyres on bikes since this creation, we’re not sure this is the endpoint frame designers have in mind.
We caught up with Wilson to go over the original build and take a look at the other weird and wacky creations he’s built since.
Fatquinox
The inspiration for the Fatquinox, as it’s lovingly referred to, came when Wilson’s friend, Rob McKillip, found himself riding a fat bike at the Iowa State time trial championship after his time trial bike broke.
This bike was the basis for the creation, with McKillip’s Trek Equinox the recipient of this fat-wheeled transplant.
Rather than being made solely as a showpiece, McKillip rode the bike on many occasions, including in numerous races.
“I know he rode it in a 200+ mile event across Wisconsin at least twice,” says Wilson. “We still run into people who say, 'Yeah – that guy passed me in RAGBRAI!'."
It’s easy to imagine this bike being a struggle to ride, but Wilson says it was quite the opposite: “The bike overall is probably a lot 'faster' than many would expect, rolling resistance on fat, lower-psi tyres being something I think the industry and riders have really caught onto over the last decade or so.”
The bike is used less these days, and it now hangs on the wall in McKillip’s house.
Carbon wizardry
Wilson’s business, Cyclocarbon, specialises in repairing carbon bike frames.
He says his interest in composites started at a young age, driven by a desire to modify his vehicles at college, before focusing on bicycles.
“I broke my Look 585 in a crit early in my racing career, and I figured I would repair it myself,” he recalls.
“That repair went well, and my experience with automotive bodywork allowed me to integrate it into the frame for a professional look.
“Things built from there. Within a couple of years, I was busy enough to leave my job and have been doing this full-time now for 12 years or so.”
Cyclocarbon has repaired between 500 and 1,000 frames a year since then.
Wilson says: “Way more frames should be repaired than currently get repaired. It’s the best way to reduce waste and avoid tariffs on new bikes.”
Turning his hand to more creative builds, he says the Fatquinox frame needed several huge changes in order to serve its new purpose.
“Much of the structural work was done by turning the work needed into several carbon repairs.
“We sectioned the stays into many pieces to bend them to our needs and then 'wrapped' them like a carbon repair.
“The bottom bracket was just cut out and replaced with a new one wrapped in.”
He says the aero features were a different story: “Those were done with techniques I had learned from prototyping and creating custom car parts.
“We created shapes we wanted in anything available from aluminium tape, duct tape, decorative flower arrangement foam and cardboard and then used those to go straight to the finished product.
“No moulds were created, as it was always intended to be a one-off.”
It doesn't stop there…
Since the creation of the Fatquinox, Wilson has focused on the repair business, custom paint and more traditional custom frame building, but that hasn’t stopped him from creating other bizarre builds.
This highly customised carbon fibre children's bike is joined with a modified Lauf fork that Wilson cut down to a 20in length.
He says he removed one of the three leaf springs on each side to add more compliance for smaller riders.
There’s also a Pinarello Dogma, which Wilson has converted into a fixed-gear build, replacing the dropouts on the rear triangle.
