First Look At The Ari Kings Peak Fat Bike

Today we're going to be taking a first look at a fat bike that has been on my radar for a while now. I've gotten lots of requests to try and get this in and I finally did. It's right here. It's the Ari Kings Peak. Now Ari was formerly Fazari and they're based in Utah. I actually happened to work down the street from them for a little while. This is their fat bike and this is the second version of it. It's full carbon as you can see and some of these lines and everything I just think are beautiful. I don't know how else to say it. But it is a good looking fat bike. Now I got mine in a size large as usual and this is their pine moss colorway. It also comes in a gray and kind of like an orange color. But if I had picked, this is probably the color that I would have picked out of the two. I got mine in the comp build. There's a comp and an elite. The comp is the less expensive version. Really the main differences are going to be the drivetrain. The comp comes with the SLX 12 speed with a 51 tooth and then a 28 tooth. And the elite is going to come with a SRAM GX drivetrain. And it's going to have better cranks as well. And then you get one extra tooth back there up to 52 tooth. The other difference is going to be the brakes. These are Tektro M275. So they're a two piston brake. They're okay. I've used these on other bikes. They're fine. But if you're going to be pushing this really hard in the summer, you are probably going to want to upgrade those at least to a four piston. Still can be a more budget version. And the elite version actually comes with TRP Trail Evo brakes. It's running these WTB STI 76 wheels in a 27.5. And then we've got the bailiffs on here. This is a great tire. I have these in a studded version that I've been running. But this is a 4.5. And it's an aggressive tread, but still fairly fast rolling. I haven't ridden as much on dirt just because of the studs. But I did ride quite a bit of late spring. And so a lot of ice and a little bit of snow as well as some dirt mixed in there. And they were a great tire for that. So really good choice on that. I like these tires a lot. Both versions come with a Trans X dropper post right here. And it's adjustable up to 30 millimeters. So you can shorten the amount of travel. And the amount of travel comes different depending on the size of the frame you get. So mine's a large. I believe this is a 175. I can't remember right now. And I could not find it in what I wrote down. I will put that somewhere. Up front, it's got some RE-branded bars with a little bit of rise. And in general, I think it's a pretty good component spec, especially for the price. Now, the price is where I think RE is kind of an outlier. That's what they were known for originally is you could get a carbon bike for a crazy deal. Obviously, tariffs have created all kinds of issues in the bike industry. But these are still a great deal. And especially right now, I'm filming this right before Black Friday, and they have a sale right now. So this comp version you can get for $2,200. That's a ridiculous deal for a carbon bike with a dropper post and good rims and the tires that it has on it. Really good deal. The Elite version is only $600 more. It's $600 normally more. These are all just $700 off for Black Friday. So you're still under $3,000 right now for an amazing bike. And even when it's not on sale, you know, mid $3,000 for a carbon bike with a GX drivetrain and TRP brakes and everything. You can get this as a frameset only. The frameset is normally $1,700. Right now it's $1,300. Really good deal on a carbon frame. Real quick, let's jump into the geometry before we get out and ride on our test loop. This is a size large, as I mentioned, so you got an effective top tube of 637, a stack of 625. I like to see that being over 600. That's my one complaint with my fat bike. And a reach of 470. If you're looking at a modern mountain bike, it's moved a little bit past those numbers, but this is pretty modern for a fat bike. And I don't know how much more we want to tweak fat bike geometry given riding in snow and what all that entails. Now onto the numbers that really caught my eye. The head tube angle is 67 degrees. Seat tube angle, 75. And the chainstay is 450. If you've watched any of my fat bike reviews, you'll know there's something magic with fat bikes. About 67 up front and 74, 75 in the back. And then 450 is a length I'm increasingly coming to love. Just right there. It's not super long, but it's also not super short. Another number I love is it's got 65 mils of bottom bracket drop. With these big tires, it helps to be a little bit higher relative to the axles in order to just keep the steering and everything feeling not so dead. Last thing to touch on is this right here. Mounting locations. You get them there. You get four right there. This clever little design, as I mentioned, to have another water bottle right there. You've got them on the bottom. You've got three pack mounts here. And you do have the ability to run a rack on the back with a different collar up here or with something attaching to your seat post. So lots of options there. If you are going to use this for exploring, that's enough talking. Let's get into riding this thing. First impression on this is I really like the body position. It's pretty upright, but not not too upright. It's nothing like my Jones or, you know, some of the ATBs I have. You still feel like you're on a modern bike. I did weigh this right after I built it up. And comp model, large, before pedals, 32.1 pounds. It's like slightly heavier than I was probably expecting. Not too much once I really think about it. With a 27.5 by 4.5 on it, first of all. And then also a dropper post. I think with all of that factored in, it ends up being about what I'd expect for a carbon frame and everything. I'd be pretty interested to see what it came out to on the higher spec. I'm guessing it's going to be no more than a couple of pounds lighter, if that. That'd probably be the max is a couple of pounds. That first three quarters of a mile. It's kind of steep. Climbed 250 feet. Not fun, but showed this was pretty good climber on some of those spots. Didn't get any weird steering effects or the front end lifting. Again, that 67 through your head tube and a decent reach. Oh, gosh, brakes aren't working. OK, got to remember, these are two pistons because there was nothing to slow me down right there. It doesn't help, too, that they're not embedded in. But holy, that's the first time I've gone fully off. I really like the way this climbs and just feels on flatter stuff. It's not boring to ride on this or a bear to ride. Not fighting with it. Just a good balance. Interesting note on the sizing. I'm just shy of 5'11", 32 inch inseam, pretty long arms. I almost exclusively ride largest with the dropper post sizing on this. It is. I think I have it only raised maybe two or three millimeters and I might go up maybe another two. But otherwise, I'm as far down as I could go, which is great because it's going to get the seat post really out of the way. But if you're borderline, you might have to talk to them on the sizing, which is a great benefit of Ari. They have a really cool sizing and customization system that they use. But this one is, yeah, super low, but borderline too long. If you're slightly shorter of a little bit shorter of legs. All right, we're at the top. We'll get some some decent downhill now. That was 2.75 miles, 646 feet of climbing. It's a good, good enough amount to get a taste of how this thing handles on climbs, on flat stuff. Now we get to have a little more fun. Oh, if you're wondering on tire clearance real quick. 27.5 by four and a half, 26 by five, which I'm going to try a 5.05, see how that goes. And 29 by three. Although I have a feeling at 29 by three and a quarter will clear. It's just such an uncommon size. People don't think about it. Feels good. That's a lot of air. That was fun. I love that section just is nice and straight. You can boost off those if you want. These tires are big. First time I rode 27.5 by four and a half, I didn't like it. They're just massive. But I've kind of come around on them. They're everywhere now. Kind of the standard, maybe a 4.3 is more. But you look at most fat bikes now. This is what they're going to be running. They hold a line like crazy. Good feel to this carbon. It's not. I don't feel rattled or jarred. I think for me, I would like five to 10 millimeters more in the front. Simple bar swap will handle that. That's just my preference, so this is going to feel very upright to a lot of people. Yeah, it's not crazy playful. You definitely feel the rear ends a little longer. The mayor, for example, I can get down to, you know, 435 440. That's enough where that one really feels super playful. This still has it, but you it wants to go a little more straight. Brakes are much better now. Probably still like to upgrade if I was going to be riding a lot of this stuff. I'm not going to worry about it too much once we hit snow. And it won't matter nearly as much. Speeds aren't as high. So you don't quite need the same braking power. Let's get into the stuff that's a little more technical. Brakes. I'm glad I had them set it up to this. Just one last thing to worry about. And it's like 85 bucks, which is, I mean, could I have done it on my own a lot cheaper than that? Yeah. But just letting them worry about it and it just comes ready to ride fully is it's pretty much worth it. Also, if you are wondering, it is UDH. Here we go. Oh, they cleared that out. That used to be you had to go to the side. Did some trail work. It looks like. Well, so stable. Let the bike do the work. And it's doing it. Here's an easy little bonus line. You can roll, but I just want to do it. The bike is calling for it. Nice, easy, but it's all good. OK, so that was the first ride on the RE Kings Peak. I have to say I clicked with it. And that is something that doesn't happen all the time on with these review bikes that I get. It was one of those rides where I just felt like it was familiar. And it's been a while since I had a bike like that. So very excited to have this in. There's a few small things I want to test out, maybe adjust. Definitely want to try it probably with a suspension fork, different wheel sizes. Luckily or unluckily, we are having a very slow start to winter. So I'm definitely going to get some dirt riding in on it and test it there. But then I'm really interested to see how it goes this winter. But yeah, let me know in the comments what you would like to know or see or have me test any questions you might want answered. And I'll be sure to keep those in mind as I'm riding this for the next couple of months. And when I release the full review, I'll try to address those the best that I can. But thanks to Ari for sending this out. Glad I could finally get it in. Be sure to subscribe if you want to see more videos and you want to see the follow up video to this. But thanks for watching. See you next time.