More road bikes coming from Gary Fisher, but they'll be branded Trek

• Thursday, 17 June 2010
• Nick Rearden
• 0 Comments

Unlike most 'legends' that have had to endure the corporate bean-counters at Trek, the endearingly bonkers Gary Fisher has only gone from strength-to-strength

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You can rely on the big bike manufacturers to be launching next year's bikes while we're still in June and we think this £600 Cro-Mo Gary Fisher Triton fixie might just be the first 2011.

Trek announced yesterday that Gary Fisher bikes will now be branded Trek under a 'Gary Fisher Collection' banner that immediately opens up access to many, many more dealerships. It should be the precursor of a whole wave of Gary Fisher road bikes, now that he's in a wider range of outlets.

Gary Fisher is an American mountain bike specialist with many passions, idiosyncracies and hobby horses - he's been a long-standing advocate of 29" wheels on mountain bikes, for example.

The implication of this is far greater for our colleagues on mbr magazine who are even now looking at the 2011 Trek mountain bike range augmented with a lovely new selection of 29er bikes. Trek's own-branded offering was non-existent and just about the only area where there has been any recent growth in mountain bike sales.




In the longer view, though, it's Trek's overall road bike sales that are likely to benefit as it will widen the number of dealerships offering Fisher-tweaked bikes 'by a factor of seven' according to Trek sources and ten times more exposure on the internet.

If the Fisher bikes were the Johnny-come-lately afterthought of many a mountain bike manufacturer these last few years, we could be forgiven for yawning and moving on.

But as Fisher himself hasn't been slow to remind us over the years, he comes from a general cycling background and long before he started racing his friends down Californian mountains on rebuilt paper-boy bikes, he is what Cycling Weekly readers would think of as a proper cyclist raised on criteriums, cyclo-cross and group road riding. He knows why large-flange hubs are cool.

One way or the other, there have always been a few road bikes in the Gary Fisher line-up and the machines from the last few years, and which mostly carry over into 2011 albeit as Treks, are certainly very interesting.

Not least, this year's blue Triton which arrived and sold out so fast it will surely be a blessed relief to the shops that this new Split Pea and virtually graphic-free 2011 version is coming soon.

Although we call it a 'fixie', for the convenience of a wider range of customers it comes with a flip-flop hub and a freewheel by default but unlike most makers of the genre - you know who you are, Genesis - it does come with a fixed sprocket as well, which we always thought was a nice touch.

We'll keep you posted on the other new models as they're announced - the carbon Cronus CX 'cross bike here being particularly tasty - but this video will give you a few clues.