Fisher Rig Deep Dive: TLDR!

    

   

I was at the Beverly Gran Prix of Cyclocross last month, and ran into Steven Hyde. You might remember his name. He was national champion a couple times. Anyway, after I said hello, he complimented my bike and mentioned he had a Gary Fisher from the same year that he loved. And I wanted to tell him all about why it IS such a nice bike. But the race was about to start, he had to have last minute talks with the athletes he's now coaching (the US National Team), and that would've been beyond odd anyway. But I can tell you! 

    Let's get this out of the way first- this is total bike nerd stuff. No other reason. Stop reading now if you're hoping for any sort of metaphor or underlying message. It's not here. This post is JUST about my new used bike! You have been warned!

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    It's hard to explain how it is becoming harder every year to get everything you want in one bike. Ever since my beloved Spot singlespeed broke last fall, I've been trying to balance what I wanted in my next bike. Should I use what I had lying in the shed? I did just that for a couple of months, but there were some nagging problems with that solution. Should I buy a brand new frame and build it up with parts? Not only quite expensive, but for awhile pretty hard to get ahold of. And when you add in the fact that bike design is going through a weird evolution of sizing standards right now, harder than you'd think. In order to accommodate more and more gears along with wider and wider tires, the back wheel (specifically the hub in its center) is getting wider. The front wheel is jealous, so it's getting wider as well. And this is across the board, in almost all new mountain bikes. In addition to this, many/most bikes have moved to disk brakes. To assure the wheels play better with the tight tolerances of disc rotors (an oversimplification, but even I'm bored talking about it in any more detail), most bikes you can buy new now come with "through axles" instead of the traditional quick release most of us are used to. this oversized axle threads into the frame and ensures the wheel ends up in EXACTLY the same spot every time you mount it.

    All of this is to say, if you want an old style, quick release, traditionally-spaced mountain bike in 2022, good luck finding it new. By which I mean, you're not going to. And if you do, 9 out of 10 are made of carbon fiber. That's another entire kettle of fish that we're just not going to get into here.  Like I said, the mountain bike you might remember from the 90s is getting rare. 

    The common understanding in bike world is that aluminum is lighter than steel, but steel is much stronger. It will last forever, unless you're dealing with an ultralight pure race bike. But despite this "fact," that has simply not been my lived experience. Maybe because people think that, they ride steel bikes harder than is reasonable—I don't know. But I can tell you that I've never broken an aluminum frame (GT Zaskar, GT Avalanche, Kona Muni-Mula, and 2 Santa Cruz Hecklers) but the last three steel frames I've owned have all ended up broken. The white Surly 1x1 snapped just behind the cranks on the right chainstay. The Kona Unit broke at the right rear dropout (where the wheel mounts). And the Spot, though it held out for years, snapped in approximately the same... well, spot. I don't know what happened to them before I got them. Maybe the cracks were microscopically present when they arrived. But this time around, I was looking for an aluminum, rather than steel, single speed. 

    And for one final impossible variable, I was tired of trying to keep the rear wheel straight. That meant I wanted what's called an eccentric bottom bracket (EBB) This keeps the chain from falling off—a job the derailleur does in a geared bike—by turning in an oval where the cranks mount, instead of sliding where the rear wheel attaches. Virtually, it pulls the bike forward instead of pulling the rear wheel back.

    All of this left me looking for: 

• a single speed
• aluminum
• with EBB
• Used
• in a color I could tolerate (there were a few neon green and bright orange options)

    Oh, and it had to be in the right size. Many large bikes are available on the used market. Not sure why, but that's how it is. SMALL bikes on the other hand, are not so common. I came very close to buying a  medium Specialized. Even met the owner in Newburyport and rode around a parking lot for awhile. But in the end, it was simply too big. Though it's counterintuitive, I have a long torso and short legs. Shaped a little like a chimpanzee. So a bike that fits me well from the saddle to the handlebars will generally be too big for me to safely* stand over. (* while I could make a larger size work on a road bike that I won't have to suddenly hop off of, a MTB needs to have a low enough tube for unexpected exits)

    All of this is to explain that because of this narrow search and the changing design of mountain bikes, it was nearly impossible to find all these factors in one bike. Especially from somebody relatively nearby (because I'm stupid for bikes, but not really dumb enough—anymore—to send my money off and get a box in the mail from some random person. I want to look at the bike before I hand over $$$).

    I've never really clicked with Gary Fisher bikes. For one thing, Gary's original company—founded along with Charlie Kelly, but that's another story for another time—was bought by Trek a long time ago, and I always felt that if it was actually a Trek, why not just call it that? (Eventually, Trek agreed, and got rid of the GF side-brand). Also, if you know your MTB history and/or personalities, Gary himself may arguably be the father of the "MTB" (with a whole lot of qualifications of that title), but he's also the archetypal loud "bro" mountain biker. 

I don't have time to write his biography here, but suffice to say he grew up near Hollywood and during his young life ran a light show at various Grateful Dead shows in the Bay area. I like all of those things, but personally, he's never really spoken to me on a personal level. 

    Two important things are in Gary's favor, however. Unlike many other bike designers/company owners, Gary is still riding mountain bikes. I've been on a ride with him myself, in fact (I got a flat tire and he and the rest of the group left me behind. It's ok, they were on a time schedule.) Secondly, he didn't invent 29" wheeled bikes, but he sure did champion them when few other people did. So whether we say Trek or Fisher, the designers have done the 29er thing for longer than almost anybody.  (Wes Williams and a few other smaller builders made 29" bikes before T/F. WTB was instrumental in producing a mountain bike tire in this size...)

 

So, when I found a bike on Facebook marketplace and it was singlespeed, EBB, Aluminum, and my size, I was very interested. Also, it was black. Now, I love color. For a week or so, I'd love a bikes in every color. But for something I hope to hang onto for a long time, nothing beats simple black, white, or silver.  Anyway, the final decider was the fact that the owner was willing to sell me just the frame and fork. You see, one of those steel bikes I broke had come to me as a full bike. So once I broke the frame, I was left with an entire singlespeed 29er, minus the frame. Needless to say, it would be quite a waste to repurchase every one of those parts by buying somebody else's whole bike. What I needed was simply a new frame.

So, considering the above thoughts on Fisher as a person and a brand, I had a decision to make. I've never really found myself wanting a GF bike. But it was in fact everything I did want, as listed in the bullet points above. And as I said, these qualities aren't getting any more common as the years go by! So I went for it. 

    Now, the Rock Shox Reba fork was a bit of a different story. If you've been reading my blog long, you know my feelings about gears and suspension. And I stand behind all that I've said. But the fact is that my shoulders have been KILLING me this year. And one component I did NOT have was a 29" suspension fork. So I decided perhaps I can concede this one point and try out a modern fork to see if it makes my ache less in the morning! Honestly, results have been mixed so far. I'm going to chalk that up to working out the fit and sizing. We'll see. Either way, I don't see myself getting rid of it. Either I'll keep it on full time or keep it in the closet for races and/or especially rough trails. For now, though, it's staying on. At least until winter...

    I haven't named it. Maybe it'll never get one. I'm really not a "name my bikes" kind of guy, but sometimes it just happens when my wife and daughter refer to them. So we'll see.

And that's my story. Surely far more than you wanted to know. But if you've read this far, thanks. Now go ride your own bike.

A weathered barn in my happy place.

Just before riding down the pass. Yes, it was rather fast. Yes, I had my fingers on the brakes.

Note the noisy, (and it turned out hard-to-remove) silver cranks.

Note red pedals. First ride off-road. Not even a back brake yet. Those came off soon after this photo.

March 2023 Update: I'm not always a bike namer, and I wasn't really planning on naming this one, until a name came to me, which DOES make it easier to group my pictures of it on Instagram. As I think I might've mentioned earlier in this post, steel is always seen as the "soulful" way to build a mountain bike. It absorbs bumps in things in a smooth way. Almost as good as Titanium, which is always about 5 times the price of steel, is described as having a "magical" ride, and is immune to the elements (it doesn't rust) so you often see them without paint. Carbon Fiber is the wonder material du jour. And I will give it one thing- it is LIGHT. If you get a chance, pick up a carbon fiber wheel in a bike shop sometime. 

But aluminum is the soul-less material for building frames. Sure, it's immune to corrosion like titanium, half the weight of steel, and more, but it has no adjective. 

So, since my bike provides "solace," and is made of a material that is "soulless," its name is Solace- pronounced with a long O. You can find it online under #thesolacebike .