Brand history
Fat Chance Cycles was founded by Chris Chance in the 1977 in Sommerville Maryland building high end custom steel road bikes. There are numerous pages, including Fat’s own history writeup on their website that document the history of the brand and so rather than rehashing that here I will attempt to document the history of the brand through the lens of the mountain bikes they made from 1982 until they closed their doors (the first time) in the early 2000s.
A decade of innovation 1982 – 1990
Much like the rest of the industry, Chis and his team of misfits at Fat Chance were honing their craft in the first ten years of the brand. Being a small builder, and focused more on quality than outright innovation their bikes followed a more linear progression rather than attempting revolutionary changes in design or materials. Over that first decade operating in Sommerville Fats followed the same basic principles of design incorporating advances in tubing rather than jumping on the bandwangon of trends of the moment. You’d never see an elevated chainstay fat, or fittings for disc brakes, weird headset sizes or the integration of advanced materials like carbon fiber into their designs. Chris didn’t include a Titanium option into the lineup until 1993 and a full suspension didn’t show up until 1995. Design changes came in smaller evolutions or rather refinements like changes in tubing, or fork design. The single biggest change was perhaps the introduction of the Yo Eddy in 1991. It marked a departure from the more compliant designs of the 80s and resulted firm entry into race inspired, aggressive trend of the 90s. Similar to Klein and Yeti, Fat Chance now had a racing steed in their lineup.
1982 Fat Chance
Chris turned his attention to the growing mountain bikes and in 1982 built his first run of 15 frames. The bike here is the 3rd one in that series and the oldest Fat mountain bike know to exist at tbe time of writing. While the East Coast school of riding would take hold in the coming years and influence future designs these earliest Fats were not unlike Ritcheys, Goats, Potts and other bikes of the era – slack and comfortable.
1983 Fat Chance
1983 Marked the first year of what might be called production following the short run of 15 made in 1982. The bike here is the first one made for 1983 and features many design elements in common with the 1982 bikes in a very attractive metallic green paintjob over a beautifully finished fillet brazed frame, fork and Bullmoose bar/stem.
Fat Chance Wicked
By the mid 1980s Fat Chance evolved their line into two basic models, the Kicker or more race oriented Fat Chance Competition. Starting in 1986 Fat introduced the Wicked, more spirited than the Kicker and not quite .as fancy or expensive as the Team Comp. Fat quickly realized that the bike was a game changer, and went on to be one of their most successful models over the next decade. Many owners will tell you that it’s their favorite bike, has that special feeling and combines all the best features that Fat had to offer. To this day it’s among the top of the list for many fans of vintage Fat Chance.
1986 Titanium
This bike is a bit of an oddball. While wearing the Fat Chance name and built at Fat Chance (by Gary Helfrich) with Fat geometry, and even raced by Chris Igleheart under the Fat Chance banner this bike is more prototype Merlin than anything else. Fat would ultimately return to building Titanium bikes in 1992, but this example is the long bike built in the 80s.
1987 Wicked
Another Wicked that deserves it’s own page is Wendyl’s personal bike that was painted for and featured on the cover of Bicycling’s annual mountain bike buyers guide
1989 Wicked
The Wicked being one of the more common Fat Chances out there I wasn’t going to feature two. However this is no ordinary Wicked and deserves top line billing. It’s a well known secret that Fat Chance built the actual frames that John Tomac raced on while sponsored by Mongoose (they were decals as Mongoose). So it should be no surprise that they would build him a custom Wicked with a very unique hand drawn stick figure design to match.
1989 Team Comp
As mentioned earlier the first generation of Team Comps were basically Kickers with a fancy build kit. However by the late 80s the design adopted the popular geometry of the Wicked but executed it with Prestige Tubing and often paired with a gorgeous Box Crown fork and top shelf build kit featuring Cook Bros cranks, Titanium handlebars and aftermarket wheels. This particular Team Comp doesn’t include a box crown fork but does have a very cool stick figure sticker kit under the clear coat for a very unique finish.
1989 Team Comp
Perhaps one of the more striking painjobs to adorn any bike is the tape peel effect adorning this 1989 Team Comp. This particular TC is a standout example of what a Team Comp should be, Prestige tubing, GP Wilson dropouts, box crown fork, Bullseye crank and wheels and full Shimano XT group to complete the kit.
1990 Yo Eddy
When someone asks me what are the top three bikes of the 1990s I always say the Klein Attitude, the Yeti ARC and the Fat Chance Yo Eddy. Launched in 1990 the Yo is all about racing and going hard. Featuring one of the more recognizable forks ever built and oversize tubing the Yo was built for one thing, and one thing only – going fast. With paintj obs to match the aggressive designs the Yo Eddy remains to this day one of the most sought after bikes among colelctors.
1990 Yo Eddy
Though not as iconic as the Team Grello Fade featured above this particular Yo Eddy was my personal bike for the better part of five years and had a lot of hard trail miles on it from California to Maryland. It exemplifies a simpler build on top of a more subtle paintjob, yet it compromises nothing that made it a standout ride all day long mountain bike,
1992 10th Anniversary
1992 marked the 10th anniversary since Fat Chance started building mountain bikes and the team commemorated the occasion with an absolutely amazing bike. Known simply at the 10th Anniversary
1993 Fat Chance Titanium
Fat Chance officially offered a Titanium option in their lineup in 1993. The initial design included external butting on the down tube, a unique wishbone design and further strengthening on the chainstays. It was a very sophisticated looking design in a time where most other Ti bikes seemed quite ordinary by comparison. The design received changes year over until the final version sold in 95/96 looked very much like most manufacturer’s Titanium bikes on the market.
1994 AMPTEC FS Prototype
The 1990s were to the development of full suspension mountain bikes like the 1850s were to the gold rush. Every manufacturer was trying to get on the board and there were many memorable designs made during those early days, most for all the wrong reasons. With what must have been a relatively limited R&D budget Fat Chance opted to license and integrated an existing design into their lineup rather than design something from scratch. For their first entry Fat took the Horst Leitner designed AMP rear suspension concept (in Aluminum) and married it to the Action Tec front suspension concept and married with BOI fork blades and a traditional Yo Eddy front end.
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