Thursday, August 14, 2008

Gary Fisher Road Bikes!


Yes, you read that right.

The big news at Trek World 2009 was the addition of a line of road bikes to the Fisher family. Admittedly, with a 4 month development cycle - enough time for development of graphics and to place orders with vendors - there's no revolutionary product here currently. But don't read this as meaning that there is no dedication to the concept. At the opening day keynote event - Product Manager Joe Vadeboncoeur tipped their hand a little; showing some hints of what they're working on for the 2010 product launch. It was a very well done multi-media montage which didn't really show enough for even an industry veteran like myself to put an entire puzzle together. But enough to see that the Trek/Fisher road team has some serious stuff in the works which will blow your mind and re-set industry standards and trends much like the LeMond "Min-Max" design and the 2008 Trek Madone did.


For the 2009 line-up; the Fisher Road line will consist of three performance models. The ARC Pro and ARC super which appear to use the LeMond Tourmalet Aluminum/Carbon frame and are available in standard and GS (women's) geometry; and the AR Super with a full aluminum frame. The Presido is a TrueTemper OX Platinum cyclo-cross machine based off the LeMond Poprad and the Triton returns as the single-speed, drop-bar road/track/commute machine. I would have loved to see the Triton (and maybe the AR Super) use long reach brake calipers to allow for wider tires and fenders...but for this year - no.

For 2009 the Fisher bikes will use the tested, established, and loved-by-many LeMond geometry. Time will tell if Trek changes this for 2010 - but they are smart enough to know that their complementary road line will need to have a different geometry from the flagship line and I don't expect them to reinvent the wheel.

More to come from Trek World 2009 soon...including: Madone road-test, Dura-Ace 7900 evaluation, Sram Red evaluation, New Trek Project One, and (gasp!) Mountain-bikes trail-tested.

Keep watching here as I try to catch up!

Thanks for reading.

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