Usually I would put that down to a bike having wide, tubeless tyres, for example, but this bike came specced with 25mm Vittoria Rubino Pros, so the lack of harshness must also be credited to the frame. It was always so smooth it just seemed to cruise.
What surprised me most, though, was how well it performed when riding over cracked tarmac and rough ground, where it didn’t feel like an aero bike at all. That was fitting, as the bike lends itself well to short blasts and I enjoyed skipping along at speed on long, flat stretches. Most of the time I spent with it was during the Covid-19 lockdown, and so most of my rides were much shorter than usual. The Transonic looks and feels like a world-class aero bike. This is supported by a slightly higher stack height than before, making it a far cry from the 23mm-tyred, slammed-stem aero bikes of yesteryear. That’s wide even by modern aero road bike standards, and makes the Transonic a very versatile beast. One of the most interesting updates has been tyre clearance, which has increased to accept up to 32mm tyres. It’s not just a purebred speed-hunting Strava machine, though. Admittedly that’s a pretty specific angle, but the company still reckons the bike saves 6.2% in drag overall. ‘Similarly, the rear chainstay has a semi-integrated shroud to aid airflow over the rear brake.’įuji claims a 28.7% reduction in drag compared to the 2014 version of the bike when the wind is at a 10° angle to the driveside. The shroud is effectively a section of carbon over the calliper.
‘We’ve used an integrated carbon “shroud” on the front brake to help smooth airflow over the disc calliper,’ says Mar Vanek, Fuji’s director of product and branding. Integration has moved to the next stage too, with cables concealed at the front and disc brakes and callipers carefully shielded from the wind. Gone are the curves and teardrop tube profiles, replaced by truncated kamm-tail tube shapes that theoretically offer structural strength advantages alongside more pure speed and better stability in crosswinds.
That was in 2014, and six years further on we have our hands on the new model, which promises to be faster and more versatile.Ĭompared to the 2014 version, the update is undeniably neater – more angular and pared back. By the 1920s it was Japan’s biggest bike brand, and nearly a century later (and now Taiwanese-US-owned) it produced its first aero road bike, the Transonic. Fuji is one of them, having been born in 1899. A set of burly Oval Consepts wheelset with Schwalbe Jumbo Jim tires glide over snow, claw sand, and even serve as added suspension against obstacles.Ī2-SL double-butted aluminum frame Clearance to run up to a 26"x5.There aren’t many bike brands that can trace their ancestry back to the 19th century. The Shimano SLX drivetrain features a Race Face 28T crankset, 11-speed Shimano SLX cassette and SLX Rapid Fire shifters for crisp shifts. The PowerCurve places you in the best position for comfort, control and pedaling performance.Ī rigid and tapered fork and frame rear triangle are equipped with Shimano hydraulic disc brakes for maximum stopping power in virtually any condition. It's constructed of A2-SL alloy with an over-sized seat tube, S-bend chainstays for better vibration displacement, and Fuji's PowerCurve down tube. The Wendigo is tough enough to withstand the most adverse environments, whether it's a technical mountain trail or a cush fire road. Made from Fuji's proprietary aluminum and featuring PowerCurve bike geometry, the Fuji Wendigo is meant to be comfortable, powerful and an animal on the trail. It follows in the same vein as Fuji's other innovative and high-quality hardtail mountain bikes, save one glaring difference - it's absolutely massive, and legitimately earns the name Wendigo (meaning half-man, which is your part, and half-beast, which is the bike). And, when it comes to big, they don't get much bigger than the Fuji Wendigo 26 2.1 fat bike.
Sometimes the biggest trail needs the biggest footprint you can find.