BTR Fabrications is a brand that gained a cult following for its radical enduro and downhill hardtails, but more recently, it has produced a sub-brand – Rat Bikes. Its first bike, the Dad Rat, does things its own way as it prioritises function over form, fun over speed and in the brand’s own words, “performance without pretension”. After a short ride on the Dad Rat, I’ve become rather enamoured with it and its intentions. Here’s why.
- Keeping it real – the BTR Fabrications story
- First Ride: BTR Fabrications Pinner
- The ultimate guide to frame materials: what’s best for bikes?
There’s one main takeaway from Rat Bikes as a brand – simplicity. The Dad Rat is built to be easy to produce, as the brand has chosen a simpler approach to frame building by employing sheet metal. Using sheet metal for the dropouts and the junction between the chain stays and the seat tube means that the brand doesn’t have to spend hours mitring tubes to fit other tubes perfectly.
The frames are put together using a standardised rear triangle that stays the same throughout the size range, and combined with Rat Bikes’ sheet metal methods, that makes for better streamlined batch production. Then, the front triangles are cut and sized specifically to each frame size. This is also where you’ll find perfectly cut tubes, welded to other tubes as usual.
Custom options aren’t a thing with Rat Bikes. You get what you get, and for now, at least, the Dad Rat is available only in black. But for a bike that’s as rough and ready as the Dad Rat, that’s not really a problem to me. Importantly, the bike’s general level of simplicity makes for a friendlier asking price of £650 for a UK-made, hand-built frameset.
Rat Bikes’ first and currently only bike, the Dad Rat, is designed to fill gravel and cross-country applications. With that, nothing is stopping you from chucking on skinnier tyres and a drop handlebar. Nor is there anything stopping you from equipping it with a flat handlebar, chunkier rubber and a 100mm suspension fork. Therein lies a good chunk of its charm.
As for the frame features, it’s all a modern affair. The Dad Rat can fit 29in or 700c wheels with tyre clearance up to 2.35 inches. It’s a 1x specific frame, and it runs a BSA 73mm threaded bottom bracket. Its ZS44/EC44 head tube can fit tapered or straight steerer forks, its seat tube can accommodate 31.6mm diameter seat posts, and there’s semi-integrated routing for a dropper post. The rear triangle can play ball with 140 up to 160mm brake rotors, the bike is equipped with rack and mudguard mounts, and there’s space in the front triangle for two bottle cages. Oh, it’s UDH compatible, too.
The geometry is where the Dad Rat gets interesting, to say the least. The medium frame I rode is sorted with a 490mm reach, a 69-degree head tube angle, a 74-degree seat tube angle and a 430mm chainstay. It’s not a short bike by any stretch.
For that £650 price, you get the frame only. However, I’m told that the unique-looking steel fork can be picked up for around £300 in the future.
Rat Bikes Dad Rat – Ride impressions
For my short time with the Dad Rat, I joined Burf (the man behind the brand) for a whistle-stop tour of the rat runs he had cut into sneaky areas of Frome, with the odd road jaunt between them. For such short bits of track, they were surprisingly varied, from flatter, easier-going efforts through grass, to small but rather technical sections, gravel-covered park tracks and a quick pump track session. Although the terrain was definitely unique from anything I had ridden on a drop bar bike before, it proved that the Dad Rat is rather unique itself.
Now, the Dad Rat is a bike that sits in that blurred line between gravel and MTB, but rather than lose its identity completely, that blurry line is its definition. That’s entirely clear in its geometry. For a gravel bike, it’s certainly out there. It’s even eccentric for a mountain bike.
Case in point of that lengthy reach figure. The 490mm reach on this medium frame is clearly a figure that’s inspired by BTR Fabrications’ radical hardtails, but it dials the length up by more than just a notch. 490mm is ludicrously long for a medium bike, being a number mostly found on progressively large mountain bike frames, and for a gravel bike, such a number is completely unheard of. That said, it’s a big (no pun intended) factor behind this bike being as outright capable and welcoming as it is.
Despite its length being somewhat outlandish for a bike that blends these genres, it results in a very mild-mannered ride. Now, I don’t mean for that to suggest that it’s a boring ride, far from it, but its wheelbase makes the Dad Rat incredibly manageable over impressively questionable terrain. Over surfaces that were a rain spell away from slop, the wheels wanted to cross over themselves, naturally, but the Dad Rat instilled enough confidence to keep the pedals turning, and the bike upright, even when the wheels were pointed in opposite directions.
Then over more technical sections of track, there’s so much support from its long front end that it makes rolling over chunky roots more than possible, without the bike wanting to spit you out over the bars. As for sprinting and tough out-of-the-saddle climbs, the front end provides a solid and confident platform to lean into. Generally, it’s a bike that’s settled from the get-go.
But despite its geometry being a little mental, it’s a remarkably familiar bike to sit on. It’s built around a much shorter stem than you would expect of a gravel bike, and around an inline seat post. The result of that approach is a bike that’s super comfortable and normal-feeling. And then the taller stack comes into play, providing a more upright position. Unlike a bunch of gravel bikes, not a twinge of discomfort kicked in during my ride.
So, I’ve banged on about the length enough for now, but to wrap up, long bikes usually fall short on the agility front. And being honest, the Dad Rat isn’t a bike that’ll thread the needle through a peloton, but it’s not meant to be. Though, to its defence, it doesn’t throw agility out of the window. Rather, its 69-degree head angle and short chainstay make slinging it around tight corners fairly breezy. In fact, when equipped with a drop handlebar, the bike conjures a level of responsiveness that’s not too dissimilar from more traditional gravel bikes, which is direct and sharp. But then, that reach stops the bike from feeling as if it’s going to fold underneath you when pushed.
With its sheet metal fixing points, I would forgive you for believing that the Dad Rat is harsh, but really, it’s far from it. Rat Bikes’ choice in tubing and gauges of sheet metal results in a very real level of compliance throughout the bike. So not only is it comfortable in its geometry, but it does a stellar job of damping harsh vibrations, especially when combined with that eye-catching, cool-looking but simple steel fork.
Throughout this first ride review, I’ve referred to the Dad Rat as a gravel bike mainly as I rode it with a drop bar and gravel tyres, but it feels kind of wrong to, because it is so vastly different. It’s not really light enough to be an out-and-out cross-country bike either. Instead, it’s just whatever you want it to be. It’s a bike for off-road shenanigans. But regardless of how it’s built, thanks to its surprisingly well-picked geometry and comfortable frame, it’s a bike that’s just as happy smashing fireroads as it is being tipped into singletrack. Whether or not this style of bike needs to be pigeon-holed is simply besides the point. The Dad Rat doesn’t care about what it is, other than just a fun bike to ride wherever you feel like.
Rat Bikes Dad Rat – Early verdict
In a genre that’s full of very strong opinions, the Rat Bikes Dad Rat doesn’t take itself seriously in the slightest – it doesn’t care. Rather, it manipulates that blurry line between gravel and MTB to its own advantage. It’s not going to win any awards for being light, nor will it for being fast, but gravel, XC-MTB, curbside jibs, mid-park cutties or whatever you want to do with it doesn’t get more fun than the Dad Rat.
1 thought on “Affordable, UK-made and just outrageous: Rat Bikes Dad Rat first ride review”
I’m no metallurgist, but that weld between the chainstay and the bottom bracket has me cringing. I hope they tested it with fat riders on rocky trails.