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| The book about the life of Gary Fisher is out now. |
"I am doing a talk on Gravel at Eurobike this July. Can we speak? ...."
It was from Gary Fisher.
So, I arranged a time with him to chat last Thursday, and we ended up speaking with each other for an hour, maybe a bit longer. The topics were not all necessarily gravel related, nor even bicycle related, but there were a few things I wanted to share which Gary prompted me to think about later on. These points will stay in the lane of gravel cycling, and are wide in scope, because- if you've ever had a chat with Gary Fisher, well, you know. Nuff said on that....
Gary Fisher is an iconic figure in cycling and many know his name as the brand for a bicycle company. They may know him as a founding figure in mountain biking. But I know Gary Fisher from a few chats I've had with him in person, from hanging out with him one time at a demo in the forest East of Santa Cruz, California, and from a few brief moments meeting him at Interbike trade shows. Every time I've had the chance to talk to him, he's been full of ideas and historical points concerning cycling, and our most recent chat over the phone was no different.
So, in a random set of thoughts, I will share some of the more salient points Gary made with me during our chat.
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| (L-R) Tim Grahl, Gary Fisher, GT. From Interbike 2006 |
"It's really about the bike and the people you meet......" Gary really hit the nail on the head here and I agree 100%. There is just something about a gathering of cyclists, having fun, and riding. I think any cycling activity can be- and has been for me- a catalyst for bringing folks together from very disparate backgrounds, beliefs, and cultures. For instance, I know for a fact that at Trans Iowa we had the liberals, the centrists, and the right wingers all riding together, having fun, and getting along with each other. (Egads!)
Cycling can break down barriers, and someone was sharing with me recently, we find out we are all people who have hopes, fears, desires, and that just want to have peace and goodness." (Paraphrasing that thought, but that is the gist of it.) In other words- you are riding, I am riding, let's have fun!
I don't know, but it works and I've seen it working all my time in the niche of gravel riding. I'm sure that could fall apart at any moment, but I'm here for it as long as that lasts, and for myself, it is the key reason I ever put on events in the first place. It was for the People, and to get to know good folks- no matter what their divisive tags may be in their life outside of cycling. Hopefully, this phenomenon I've seen, and that Gary has seen, infects us more.
"It was all about pack racing, ya know?" Here Gary was explaining why, in his view, road racing bikes were different than gravel bikes, and where gravel bikes might go on the 'pointy end' of Pro/Semi-Pro racing in the future. His idea was centered around 'pack racing' and how aerodynamics of drafting and race craft worked to inform how bikes evolved for pavement racing.
Briefly, the idea is to optimize your ability to draft and by steepening the head angle, lengthening the stem, and tweaking a few other aspects of frame geometry. This allowed a rider to get out over the front of the bike, lower their torso and head to maximum effect, and keep aerobic capabilities intact, (with much training, of course). This weighted the front wheel pretty heavily, and is why when sprinting, a rider not in the drops was vulnerable to being pushed aside, or crashed out.
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| Aero bar extensions, as seen on Chad Ament's bike from T.I.v11 here, have been a bone of contention. (Image by Jason Boucher) |
Obviously, this kind of thing doesn't play so well on gravel, but don't be surprised if you start seeing more aggressive, more 'race oriented' geometry in gravel. I mentioned to Gary that drafting on gravel can be difficult due to the surface, which makes holding a line harder, and he agreed. It might be that we see racing geometry for gravel, but I do not think it will be as radical as we saw things get in the 80's and 90's.
Aero bar extensions play into this instability issue, and in pack-style racing, such as we see at Unbound Gravel, a rider using aero bars in a pack can be a recipe for a crash. Again, the drafting benefits may push some riders to try this out despite the high cost of consequences for this if things go wrong. To my way of thinking then, the real problem is pack-style racing, which engenders all the issues with drafting, and we haven't even touched upon men/teammates drafting up women competitors, which has been another hot topic in longer gravel events. At least in the faster ranks.
But as Gary alluded to, the pack-style racing makes for great viewing and is a spectacle, so I don't see it going away because that is what entertains and sells to the masses.
"Man! What a difference having the tires made!" Gary Fisher was talking about how "real MTB designed tires" made all the difference in the early days of MTB. The same holds true for gravel cycling. I mentioned to Gary that many riders were using Schwalbe Marathon series tires in the early days because they were the only tires with any volume which had the capability to hold up in rougher gravel. Of course, we did not have tubeless tires back then either.
The Schwalbe comment sent Gary off on a tangent about Dutch commuter bikes, by the way, which, I believe, is one of Gary's favorite subjects to pontificate upon. I found out about flexible fabric chain cases and rolled edge rims which are impervious to pinch flats. But I'll spare you all the details on that, since it veers off the path I set here.
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| Some of my favorite memories of Gary are his rants about Las Vegas. |
"So, Congratulations!! Really...."
Gary emphasized this strongly. He repeated it three times. I guess I am to take it that I need to understand that fully. "Congratulations"..... Coming from Gary Fisher? Yeah...
So, we spoke about a lot more than this, but it was fun to listen to Gary, his effervescent enthusiasm for bicycles, which I can say hasn't waned in the least since I've first met him, and to hear his ideas. I hope that I contributed a little bit to his talk at Eurobike this coming July.
I thought you all might find that interesting, that a pioneer of MTB is now being tasked with speaking about gravel riding. But, hold on! Gary pointed out that early mountain biking was done almost entirely on found fire roads, most of which were gravel! Gary said, "Man! We were gravel riders!", and who can argue with that!
First, thank you for your blog posts, especially ones referencing historical and human interest. Second, last weekend I was introduced to a story about the 25th Infantry's bicycle trip from Missoula, Montana, to St. Louis, Missouri in 1897. I suspect you're already aware of this story, but if not, PBS has an hour long video on the topic. You can view at https://www.pbs.org/video/montanapbs-presents-bicycle-corps-americas-black-army-on-wheels/. Cheers!
ReplyDelete@Carson - That actually came up in my conversation with Gary, the subject being discussed at that point in our talk being "who was first" to be a gravel rider. Obviously, before roads were paved, (and they were paved for cyclists first), everyone was a dirt/gravel rider! The subject of the Buffalo Soldiers was mentioned in that.
ReplyDeleteThere were a lot of early, ultra-distance "bikepacking" expeditionary cycling feats which took place back then. Obviously the Buffalo Soldiers trip stands out due to the connection with Black American soldiers who were involved. There were several U.S. cross-country efforts attempted and accomplished by men and women who were, usually, doing these trips as a way to publicize a brand of bicycle. Australian continental crossings also figure heavily into this genre as well.
So, neither Gary or I are saying "we were first" in terms of gravel cycling. However; there is a point at which gravel cycling took off as an influential part of modern-day cycling, and that is what Mr. Fisher and myself were speaking of, and what I am relating to here in my post. That "point" certainly owes a lot to those predecessors, but that "point" in time is also critical to where we are today.