Originally Posted by
Dschmale
I'd probably rephrase this question because one bike will never suit all your needs ideally. I'd ask, "If you had to spend good money on only one bike, would it be a fat bike?" In that case, absolutely. Relatively efficient roadies, for brewery cruises and such, can be had for cheap. The fat-bike does everything else well and you tend to get more as you spend more, relative to a road/gravel/hybrid.
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If I could only spend a ton on one bike, it would be on a FS (non-fat, non-plus) mountain bike. Give me a $4K MTB and I can easily find another $2K worth of stuff I want and would completely appreciate the difference.
OTOH, $1500 has gotten me just about all the Fat bike I really feel like I want/need, including a dropper post. That might start to push $1,800 once I get new/lighter tires and replace the bar. Of course, the reason I don't feel the need to trick out the fat bike too much is that I have a much nicer FS MTB for non-winter A-game riding. I don't really care if the fatty is heavy, I'm not going all that fast in the snow and slop I bought it for, anyway.