Gary Fisher

The American Gary Christopher Fisher ( born November 5, 1950 in Oakland, California ) is a former racing cyclist and bike mechanic and is considered the inventor of the mountain bike. He is now named after Gary Fisher bikes of the brand.

Cycling career

1963 saw the then 12 -year-old Fisher for themselves cycling and was racing cyclist. A year later, he discovered the cross-country race ( Cyclocross ). Both disciplines he operated quite successfully until it was closed in 1968 because of his long hair by the U.S. Cycling Federation. Since Fisher did not want to part with his hair, he was only in 1972 permitted again. He could enter some success in the subsequent period. Gary Fisher holds the record for the Repack race.

Invention of the mountain bike

1973 Fisher began with his friend Joe Breeze, like him, to descend cyclist and frame builder on bicycles converted from Mount Tamalpais. From the top of this 850 -meter-high mountain in California led an imaginary as a fire road dirt road into the valley. Converted Schwinn cruiser bicycles from the 1930s, then the " clunkers " christened the friends were used as wheels. This 20 -pound bikes were just pushing to get to the mountain, however, possessed the necessary stability for the descent and had 2 inches wide 26er balloon tires, Ignaz Schwinn had brought in 1932 by a European tour of Germany. These tires now ensured for an unusual comfort for the cyclist and bringing the fun factor of the runs being duly enlarged for this. Later still, Tom Ritchey and Charles Kelly joined the hard core to Gary Fisher, and evolved from the Abfahrerei the so-called Repack race. The name comes therefore had to because the hubs were after departure from many brakes completely dry and a comprehensive service, especially with lubricants, requiring, or " repacked " are. In order to achieve better and better times was constantly trying to improve the bike, mostly with parts of motorcycles. Finally, Joe Breeze built in 1977 at the suggestion of Charles Kelly, the first designed specifically for the terrain Custom-made bike, the frame geometry of the model of the Schwinn Cruiser corresponded: Steering angle 68 ° seat angle 70 °, chain stay 470 mm. For additional stiffening tubes on the fork and the frame triangle were attached. This bike was much lighter than the clunkers. However, such a framework for Gary Fisher was too expensive, also it envisioned a completely different framework with an open triangle. So Fisher initially remained loyal to his clunker, he had now upgraded to 15 speeds and he is so in spite of its weight could drive up the mountain thanks to his strength and conditioning. In Tom Ritchey Fisher finally found the right man who could realize his bicycle plans. Fishers innovative concepts and Ritchey knew to convince, so Fisher directly ordered 10 frames and, together with Charles Kelly decided to expel the Ritchey bikes high-quality implementation. They called their company " mountain ", and so the mountain bike was born.

1984 came to irreconcilable differences between Fisher, Ritchey and Kelly. They parted, and each of the mountain bike pioneers went his own way. The bicycle brand Gary Fisher was born.

Further developments of the company Gary Fisher

The firm Gary Fisher was instrumental in many developments in the mountain bike sector, such as wide handlebars and Unicrown fork. Fisher worked with Shimano together on today's conventional circuits. With the RS-1 set Fisher 1991, the first full-suspension mountain bike before. Later, the Genesis geometry concept and the 29-inch bikes were presented. Was used as the carbon fiber reinforced plastic marketable, Fisher was so fascinated by the ease of this new material that he did everything he could to develop a framework of this material. It proved to be extremely difficult to develop from this material a sufficiently strong frame so that Gary Fisher for the development spent his entire corporate and private capital without having to obtain a reasonable result. He was then forced to sell the majority stake of his company to the bicycle manufacturer Trek. Even after the acquisition was Gary Fisher the "head" of its brand, and Fisher bikes are still his creations.

On 16 June 2010 Trek announced that the Gary Fisher Collection by Trek replaced the independent brand now.