Minus Ten Review- 8

The Fisher Bikes Super Cal 29 FS which never made it to production

On the blog ten years ago I went back into a swing of talking about 29"er stuff. Single speeds, why no one else other than Fisher Bikes was pushing the envelope, and also I was probing the peculiar "69"er", or as John Castellano said of them at the time, "50-50 Bikes". They were said to be the "best of both worlds", (26" and 29"), but obviously, in the end they were neither.

The "best of both worlds" angle was trotted again a year later when 27.5 bikes were introduced. Well, as we have also found out, the 27.5" wheel ended up being a way to make 26 inch bikes obsolete and forcing a re-upping by those who liked smaller wheels to buy new bikes. Now we're seeing another thing that is going to do a similar thing to both 29"ers and 27.5"ers- No, not another wheel size, although you could blame this on the "plus" sized rubber that's abundant these days. The new nemesis of old bikes will be Boost technology, which is going to widen out the wheel spacing, and that will put all older bikes out to pasture within the next few years. Progress, or conspiracy. You choose.

I also featured a "sneak peek" of a new 29"er that was in development by Fisher Bikes. Remember, there were two 29"er sites at the time that barely anyone knew about, so bloggers like me got a few bones thrown their way back in the day. The Supercal 29 FS never made it to production, however, and we had to wait a year or so longer to see the HiFi line introduced, which actually looks similar to this proto, come to think of it.

Speaking of cycling sites, at the end of February 2006 I announced that I would be a contributing writer to "The Biking Hub" site, out of Canada, and a site that was quite well respected in down hill/gravity mtb scenes. It went defunct about a year later, but it was the catalyst that pushed me into becoming the writer and cycling persona I have become today, if I can be so bold as to suggest that I have any notoriety.