2024 Trek Farley 7 Fat Bike Review

When Fall came around this last year, I thought to myself, “why would I stop riding just because the snow is coming?” In comes the fat bike. It’s hard to get very far in the fat bike world before I had to reckon with the Trek Farley. This family of fat bikes is one of the best designed offerings in an increasingly competitive field. We reviewed the Trek Farley 7 with the hopes that its sporty geometry and capable fork would pay dividends on frozen single track. It did not disappoint!

2024 Trek Farley 7 Features:

• Frame features Alpha Platinum alloy with top tube and frame bag mounts, fender mounts and internal routing with a 100mm threaded BB and UDH
• Manitou Mastodon 34 Comp fork
• Wheelset uses SUNRingle Mulefut 80 SL with Bontrager hubs
• Bontrager Narwhal Team Issue 27.5×4.50″ tires
• Mix of SRAM NX and GX Eagle drivetrain with PG-1230 Eagle (11-50t) cassette
• Bontrager Verse P3 saddle with Bontrager alloy riser bars
• TranzX JD-YSP18 dropper seatpost
• SRAM Level T hydraulic disc brakes
• Weight: 37.59 lbs (medium, tubes, stated)
• MSRP: $2999

Boldly go where…. well, anywhere you want really:

The Trek Farley has been around for awhile, and this current iteration is Gen 3. It’s been gradually updated since its release in 2013, and this year’s release generated a ton of buzz as positive impressions came out. For a bit of historical perspective, check out this post on fat-bike.com for a look at the history of the frame. Adding to the fame was a (now-settled) lawsuit brought by the family of the late Chris Farley arguing that Trek used the name Farley to evoke a certain…. burliness? But, let’s just say that if you’re living in a van down by the river, this bike will get you there — no matter the weather.

We’re reviewing the Trek Farley 7, and its sister bikes are the Farley 5, 9 and 9.6. It’s not fair to say that there’s a performance hierarchy here. Instead, Trek offers four fat bikes tuned for specific uses. It’s not just higher number = higher performance, although it’s true that the Farley 9.6 sports a carbon frame and a full GX Eagle drivetrain. The Farley 9 has an aluminum frame and a carbon fork but is decked out with a bunch of gorgeous, specifically designed racks and bags. These it ready for hauling right from the factory. The Farley 5 sits comfortably as a wallet-friendly fatty with similar chops to the Farley 7, but no Manitou fork and more modest components.

On the up:

The first thing to know about the Farley is that it’s a nimble, fun fat bike. We’ll get to that more later. The second thing to know about the Farley is that it’s heavy. It weighs in around 38lbs for the Medium that I tested, which is at the high end of what similar trail-oriented fat bikes come in at. I noticed this on long climbs, but the bike itself doesn’t feel sluggish. The frame geometry is key here. The effective seat tube angle is 73.2º, and I can visually see that the saddle sits well back behind the cranks and over the rear tire. I like this from a stability standpoint, as well as for keeping traction on the rear wheel while I powered up climbs.

The downside to having my weight further back is that, on very steep climbs, I easily felt too far back. Obviously, that’s not ideal. When I think about the trails that most fat bikers tackle, though, steep climbs are probably not the most consistently sought-out feature. I think that the gains in stability, traction and confidence are probably outweighed by the losses on steep climbs.

Power transmission and traction are the other key things here. Trek chose a really capable component mixture of SRAM NX shifters and a GX rear derailleur and rear cassette. I wasn’t sure if the more budget-oriented NX shifters would reduce the quality ‘feel’ of the GX derailleur, but it felt great and the ergonomics are the same as the GX shifters on my other bikes. The shifting felt crisp and reliable, even with loads. Despite some very cold riding, I never had gummy shifting.

On the down:

Our Farley 7 is built from Trek’s Alpha Platinum aluminum frame in a fast-looking yellow paint job. It’s wed to a Manitou Mastodon air spring fork, which is sporty enough to have an ABS damper and a lockout. I have never had so much fun with 80mm of travel. The head tube angle is 67.9º, a touch slacker than the previous iteration’s 69º. The slacker angle helps riders feel more confident and makes the bike less twitchy, but the Farley still manages to feel nimble at low speeds.

I’ve never ridden a fat bike with a suspension fork before, but I loved it. The Manitou Mastodon is not exactly the pinnacle of suspension fork technology, but it doesn’t need to be. Its 80mm of travel offers enough forgiveness to smooth out choppy, icy trails and enough playfulness to make the bike feel more lively, not less.

Another major touch point is the Tranz-X JD-YSP18 seatpost. On my Medium frame, the 31.6mm post has 130mm of travel. For Small it’s 100mm, and Large is 150mm. Sort of like the Mastodon, this wasn’t a post that I’d had experience with before, but it performed super well. Even in really cold temperatures, the actuation was smooth and fast (but not too fast coming back up!). There’s a normal amount of lateral wiggle and wasn’t noticeable when riding. What was noticeable was the enjoyment of being able to get the seat down and out of the way on the descent, which is a treat on a fat bike.

One weaker part of the downhill experience are the SRAM Level T brakes. The actuation felt a bit on/off to me rather than nicely graduated, and the levers feel like budget levers. The 750mm handlebar is slightly narrow, but again with the slacker head angle it never felt twitchy or unstable to me.

The Bontrager Narwhal tires are absolutely stellar. They’re huge, grippy and studdable. I opted not to stud mine as we more consistently have soft snow than ice, and I never felt like traction was an issue. They’re mounted on SUNRingle Mulefoot 80 SL wheels which are tubeless compatible. My bike arrived with tubes, and I didn’t install tubeless, but doing so would certainly extend the tire pressure range to well below 10 PSI.

Riding Experience:

This is the very subjective, ‘how does it feel’ part of the review. I’m not an expert fat biker and don’t pretend to be, but I am someone who loves to put in long cross country miles as well as shredding enduro lines at Beacon Hill. I did a mix of riding on the Farley, but it definitely leaned cross country as I selected good winter trails. That said, many of my favorite cross country trails have technical sections that keep their flavor in the snow.

The Farley is a really fun, playful bike to ride. I couldn’t actually believe that it weighed nearly 40lbs when I was riding it: it certainly does not feel like that. The granny gear keeps things spinning. As I chugged along in winter boots and heavy gloves, I never really thought about the bike’s weight. The uphill experience is really aided the 73.2º head tube angle, which keeps things feeling very ‘planted’ over the rear wheel. This maximizes traction but didn’t really come at the cost of me popping unexpected wheelies on the climb.

The Farley shines perhaps the most on the down. It’s playful, capable and confident. I loved how the slack head tube angle hit the mark between being nimble and being stable. Some riders might want wider bars than 750mm. Personally I was content with them and appreciated the clearance between some tight Ponderosa and Lodgepole trunks along my favorite routes.

The components hit a nice balance between affordability and function. The shifting was always crisp and clean for me, and the braking was reliable and strong if not particularly refined. Add in a reliable dropper and phenomenally grippy tires and you have a run riding experience.

Buy Now: Available from TrekBikes.com