We get down and dirty with one of the founding fathers of MTB, and find out what lies behind his flamboyant image <\/p>
There are few characters so synonymous with mountain biking as Californian Gary Fisher, one of the original Repack gang who are credited with founding our beloved sport. With his famous moustache, bold dress-sense and an attitude to match, Gary has been a lifelong innovator within the bike industry, and at a sprightly 72 years of age he\u2019s still out there shredding those legendary NorCal trails.<\/span><\/p>\n Just some bike guy.<\/span><\/p>\n Making a ruckus and changing things!<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019d like to take certain bike racers out shopping for clothes in London, Milan or Paris. When you find somebody\u2019s look, they come alive, like, \u2018wow, yeah, this is me!\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n I live in Belvedere, a tiny town in Marin County, San Francisco Bay. I grew up here, and there are all of these big long steps around here; I used to ride them two at a time, but I can\u2019t do that any more.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n My dad was an architect in San Francisco and he did a lot of projects like the Embarcadero Center and the restoration of the Palace of Fine Arts. I learned to draw from him. My mom was a Hollywood mom; she worked in the movie industry.<\/span><\/p>\n It was with older kids at the San Mateo Bike Shop. They said they went fast, but they couldn\u2019t drop me. After they said they could make me the mascot, I started crying, so they made me a member. That was my first ride with other people \u2013 like, an 80-mile ride at 12 years old!<\/span><\/p>\n It was a Legnano (Italian road bike). It had steel Magistroni cranks and Campagnolo gears, a Regina chain and cluster.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A good [road] group that knows how to rotate [take their turn at the front] and ride echelons in crosswinds [fan out in a diagonal formation]. That\u2019s cool, that\u2019s the power of the group. Going fast \u2013 I love that stuff!<\/span><\/p>\n This morning. There was this ripping tailwind on one stretch, which was a lot of fun. You need that every day; the bike helps you forget and remember.<\/span><\/p>\n Paola Pezzo [\u201990s XC star who won Olympic gold in Atlanta] <\/span>and her husband Paolo Rosola. They\u2019re very civilised, and to be in that section of Italy and be able to \u2018call up\u2019 how and where you\u2019re going to ride is wonderful. I\u2019ve been riding my road bike a lot, but I\u2019ve also got a [Trek\/Gary Fisher] Superfly, an old one. It\u2019s all tricked out and is carbon fibre. I have a fatbike, too, but the tyres have got skinnier. I\u2019ve got to get a bike with more current geometry!<\/span><\/p>\n I get up early, get my coffee and then I have to go on my ride. Then, if the kids are in, I make sure there\u2019s food in the house. I cook a lot. Because I\u2019m the best cook, they make me do it all!<\/span><\/p>\n I stepped away from Trek this year. It was a great ride with them but I wanted to do a few Gary-like things. I\u2019m not going to make a bike or anything, I\u2019ve done that. It\u2019s more about working on places to ride bikes, and ideas on things for bikes.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Things can be a little bit on the disposable side. In the US, they allow these bikes to be sold that we call a \u2018bike-shaped object\u2019 and \u2018landfill in a box\u2019. Unrepairable bicycles \u2013 it\u2019s a joke.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m not an air guy, but I love watching it. Sometimes I wonder if I should go and jump on an airbag for a while. I like all of that flipping around and everything. But, these days, my (doctor) wife says, \u2018nah\u2019. She doesn\u2019t want me getting hurt.<\/span><\/p>\n My grandfather invented the role of script supervisor in Hollywood, and I inherited his stuff. There were a lot of backstage studio shots; he did films like Stanley Kubrick\u2019s Lolita<\/em>, Lost in Space<\/em>\u00a0 <\/span>\u2013 he did over 250 films.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m trying to get into a position to bring higher-quality trail work to the sport by working with the best trail builders in the world \u2013 mountain bikers!\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n This article was originally published in MBUK<\/em> 418<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n We get down and dirty with one of the founding fathers of MTB, and find out what lies behind his flamboyant image <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":22597,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2023\/03\/meet-one-of-mountain-bikings-true-legends-gary-fisher.jpg",2480,1651,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2023\/03\/meet-one-of-mountain-bikings-true-legends-gary-fisher-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2023\/03\/meet-one-of-mountain-bikings-true-legends-gary-fisher-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2023\/03\/meet-one-of-mountain-bikings-true-legends-gary-fisher-768x511.jpg",768,511,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2023\/03\/meet-one-of-mountain-bikings-true-legends-gary-fisher-1024x682.jpg",800,533,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2023\/03\/meet-one-of-mountain-bikings-true-legends-gary-fisher-1536x1023.jpg",1536,1023,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2023\/03\/meet-one-of-mountain-bikings-true-legends-gary-fisher-2048x1363.jpg",2048,1363,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/mbuk\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"We get down and dirty with one of the founding fathers of MTB, and find out what lies behind his flamboyant image","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/mbuk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/22596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/mbuk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/mbuk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/mbuk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/mbuk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/mbuk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/mbuk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Who is Gary Fisher?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
What are you best known for?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
What\u2019s your fantasy day?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
Where do you call home?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
What was your upbringing?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
What\u2019s your first riding memory?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
What was your first proper bike?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
What gets you excited to ride?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
When was the last time you were really stoked?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
Who are your favourite people to ride with?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
Current go to bike?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
What\u2019s a typical day for you now?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
What\u2019s your role within the bike industry now?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
What do you see as the Biggest industry mistakes?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
Are you a wheels-on-the-ground kind of rider?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
What\u2019s something people don\u2019t know about you?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
What are you up to in 2023?<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"