Here she is.

Since the Camba group ride got cancelled today I'm going to unviel it on my blog. Factory Rider Robert got a sneak peak at it today, and sorry Bob but it's not a Fisher. I wholeheartedly support the Gary Fisher brand and love their bikes, I own three, and those three Fishers will be my main bikes. This was definitaly a splurge, whim purchase. Don't worry Bob I haven't strayed far at all from the brand. But I will say you did have a part in this purchase.

So enough of this longwindeness, so what was in the box. Well here's what it looked like coming out of the box.

So this is my fourth mountain bike, and it's a rigid single speed 29er. I picked this particular bike because it's what my bank account could afford.I had been looking at the Fisher Mamba, and dreaming of a procaliber but knew I couldn't afford either of those for a while. I also wanted a rigid ss because I had a hardtail and full suspension 26er's already in my stable to handle all the race courses around the area. This bikes purpose is fun. All my other bikes beg to be ridden fast. I've set them up this way and each time I get on them I just want to go as fast as possible. This bike will be for the days where I just want to enjoy a ride through the single track and not worry about my training plan. To get back to my first few months of riding, before the racing bug bit me, where it was about the bike and the trail. No suspension settings or lockout, no gear changes, just myself pushing the pedals with a smile on my face.


The first thing I noticed about the 29er platform is how stable it is. Take your hands off and ride no handed and the bike feels like your hands are still on the bars. It's that effortless. Of course, it's harder to get the tires to spin up and doesn't have the snap getting up to speed, but once it's up to speed it's much easier to keep the pace. I feel more confident descending with the bigger wheels, higher handlebars and widers bars. Ascending is a small bit harder. If you have momentum the bike carries you up the hill, but if you lose momentum it's a lot harder to get the tires moving again.

Now to the actual bike, it's a little on the heavy side out of the box, at 25 pounds. A lot of this is in the wheels and fork. The wheels are definitly the weakest link of the bike. They are heavy, non disk (even though the bike comes with disk tabs) and the hubs are not that good. I may have another set lined up which will be much better. The fork is just heavy and I'll be looking to upgrade to a new fork. Maybe the Bontrager carbon rigid fork.

The good points, first disk tabs, other bikes in this price point don't come with those so it was a nice feature. It's also ready for gears so if I ever want to take it for an epic climbing ride I can add some shifters, gears and a read derailleur and I have a 1x9 pretty easily, for all those epic climbing rides. The frame looks nice and the welds seem nice. It's nothing special but it's going to do it's job of letting me enjoy the trails. It definitly won't be used the most but it will get it's fair share. Hopefully, I'll be out at West Branch tomorrow taking it for a test ride.