Minus Ten Review -36

Hard to handle, but imminently ride-able.

Ten years ago on the blog I posted what still is pretty much my thoughts on fork offset, front end geometry, and how that affects handling.

"In the end, most combinations are immanently ride able and most of us would be able to handle the bike with whatever geometry we want to consider. Whether it fits an individuals style and how a bike should handle in their mind is going to vary quite a bit from person to person. That is what I think is great about today versus five years ago. Back then, you were stuck in a box handling-wise, only being able to vary how a bike rode incrementally with a head angle change. Now you can have it spicy or mild, or anywhere in between. I love it and it opens up a whole different set of perspectives on what a good handling bike really is."

There were thoughts shared on Trans Iowa and the recon for v5. I split the course finding duties with David Pals that year. He rode a lot of his bits and eventually I was to join him in doing that for what would become v7 a couple of years later. The recon of the course in this manner was a big lifting of weight off my shoulders and I was very relieved to have David working in the capacity that he did back then. 

Finally, by this point in 2008, Salsa Cycles had introduced the Fargo. The name had been revealed! Now folks had a look at the bike and reactions were.........passionate! Folks either loved it, or slagged it off as Salsa's "rip-off" of custom bikes, or said it was a "Jones Bike clone", or they even tried to draw parallels to Niner Bikes. The commentary was goofy, sometimes extremely negative, and not one of these people had actually ever ridden one yet. I kind of felt like it was a bike that had tons of potential to bring a lot of non-racer types back into a form of cycling I briefly was calling "adventuring". Here's a bit of a snippet from 2008 on what I thought about the Fargo:

"I think that the Fargo will be a trend setter, but maybe I'm off my rocker. I do know that it is a bike a lot of folks have been waiting for. Perhaps a bike that will set off a thousand adventures? Time will tell."

Judging from the Facebook page for the Fargo and the long running Fargo thread on MTBR.com, I'd say I was right about that. The Fargo still sparks that same kind of wonder and curiosity that it did in 2008. Kudos to Jason Boucher, Joe Meiser, Kid Reimer, and all the Salsa Crew who, at that time, had the vision and the passion to bring that bicycle model to life. I and a whole bunch of other folks owe a big debt of gratitude to those people.