Christini AWD Fat Bike

Kickstarter often has some really interesting tech on it, and this is no exception.  Christini  has come out with an all wheel drive fatbike.

Christini Technologies designs and builds what they say are the world's only All Wheel Drive Mountain Bikes. Christini’s mechanical All Wheel Drive system delivers power from the rear of the bicycle to the front wheel through a series of gears, shafts, and chain all mounted within or on the frame. Because, you know, science.

CT is located in Philadelphia, PA. All of their bikes are assembled by hand.

Here's how they tell it.

Christini AWD Fat Bike — the Story

Christini AWD mountain bikes were first introduced in 2001 with production AWD hand tail and full suspension models. As the company grew it then moved  into AWD motorcycle production which put the bikes on the back burner while AWD motos went into production.  In 2013, Kate Leeming entered the picture.  Kate called [Christini] to see if it was possible to build her a custom All Wheel Drive Fat Bike to help her with an expedition across Antarctica via the South Pole.  We decided to jump right in and build her a custom bike using some of the parts [they] still had around from the bike days.  So [they] came up with a 4″ Fat version with a split frame design. And sure enough…. the bike was a hit!

The test of the first 4″ AWD Fat Bike was so successful that we decided to build Kate the ultimate bike to make it across Antarctica.  Thus the 5″ AWD Fat Bike came to life, taking some tricks from our full suspension bikes to get the wide rear tire to work with the drive shaft.  Add some creative engineering with top of the line components and you have a ‘traction-packed' AWD Fat Bike that weighs in at an incredible 32lbs!

For picture with wheel: To aid drive in the polar snow, the front wheel is powered by a driveshaft linkage, taking power from the traditionally-driven rear wheel

While the Kickstarter has ended, we figure this is something worth checking out.