2007 Gary Fisher
 

I'm terrible, I know. But...I ripped this from Singletrackworld.com

Some 2007 Gary Fisher Stuff - HiFi and Race Day

Gary Fisher's 2007 full suspension range launch happened in Fruita and Crested Butte, Colorado, in the good ol' US of A and a number of journalists were invited from Europe and North America to ride bikes and generally be waited upon hand and foot by the corporate machine.
http://www.singletrackworld.com/mod/...ges/2056-2.jpghttp://www.singletrackworld.com/mod/...ges/2056-3.jpg
Chipps wasn't available for this truly horrible task (something about a 24hour race?!) so I resigned myself to five days of riding classic trails on brand new top of the line Gary Fisher full bouncers. This bike journalism thing is as hard as they're always making out, I can assure you.

After a long plane trip, brief tussle with the Department Of Homeland Security, a motel stopover and a bit more plane time, Guy Kesteven and myself arrived a day late to find most of the other journalist types already enjoying the trails in a scorchingly hot Fruita. Damned if we were going to miss a once in a lifetime opportunity to ride some famous dusty, rocky singletrack, we chucked on riding gear and sunscreen and were picked up by Zapata Espinosa of Trek and delivered from a nice air conditioned hotel to the rather hot and dry trailhead. I was down to ride the new Gary Fisher HiFi and there was even a bike with my name on it. Magic.
http://www.singletrackworld.com/mod/...ges/2056-4.jpghttp://www.singletrackworld.com/mod/...ges/2056-6.jpg
The Gary Fisher HiFi is an all new "all mountain" full suspension design and it replaces the Cake for 2007. It's still essentially a single pivot design, but with a linkage activated shock (now a Fox RP3 item on the entire HiFi range) and some pivots on the 110gsm carbon fibre seatstays. Most of the frame is heavily manipulated 6061 T6 aluminium (aluminum?) and it's all welded up in the US. They're finally using press fitted bearings everywhere rather than bushings and the "cartridge bearings stuck in with Loctite" designs of old which should make them more durable and less of a pain to replace. The carbon stays now plug into the alloy end caps rather than the other way round, as on old models, which should make for a stiffer assembly.

The main pivot faces on the frame and swingarm are machined after being welded and heat treated for better alignment and hopefully to avoid any chainsuck issues (Sugar, anyone?) on the asymmetrical chainstays. There's 116mm of travel from the rear end and it's delivered in a straightforward enough manner; linear through the stroke with a slight ramp up towards the end and the usual single pivot chain effects happening, so compliance biased in the big ring, neutral in the middle and traction biased in the granny. Frame weight with shock is claimed at 5.2lbs, which is slightly lighter than the 120mm travel Stumpjumper FSR (although that does have the rather heavy Brain adaptive lockout thingy stuck to it) and the SC Blur XC, as well as a good chunk lighter than the 130mm travel Stumpy FSR Carbon.

The really different thing about the HiFi is the introduction of the next generation of Genesis geometry called, surprisingly enough, Genesis 2.0 or G2. The thinking behind this is that the old Genesis geometry was good for doing stuff at speed, but fell down on the slow twisty stuff. They decided the solution was to sharpen things up at the front end by reducing fork trail. For those confused already, here's a massively simplified idiot's guide to trail: know why the massive long forked slack DH bike feels really unstable when you're pedalling slowly round a carpark but feels lovely and stable when you're going nice and fast? It's got a lot of trail from the long forks and slack headtube.
http://www.singletrackworld.com/mod/...ges/2056-7.jpghttp://www.singletrackworld.com/mod/...ges/2056-1.jpg

The opposite goes for steep angled short forked XC race bikes with little trail - they're fast handling through tight twisty stuff, but can feel a little scary at speed. The G2 geometry was aimed at finding a setup that worked well at high and low speed without messing up the existing Genesis geometry dimensions such as the long and stable wheelbase, so changing head angles massively was out. Keith Bontrager was invoked and it was decided that that they could alter the trail value and spruce up the low speed handling by changing the fork offset. Existing forks were all too similar in terms of the offset they had, so an all new fork was needed and they turned to Manitou, with whom they tested and developed a number of different fork offsets and frame geometries. Using a team of test riders riding the different setups "blind" with covered crowns, fourteen of the sixteen riders from Bontrager, Fisher and Manitou agreed on one setup, which became Genesis 2.0. Hallelujah.

The end result is a G2 specific fork from Manitou that has a 49mm crown offset instead of the usual 38-39mm range. If a bike specific fork seems a little mad to you, then we're in agreement but Trek does have massive buying power and a history of pushing "innovation" (29" wheels anyone?) on the consumer. There are going to be two G2 forks to start with, the mid range Manitou Relic and an all singing, all dancing Minute. As an aside, it's also claimed that the G2 front end will improve the way the fork is activated because of the angle they now compress at. When I enquired if there were any other fork manufacturers likely to make G2 forks I was given a firm "yes" and no more details, which served me right for doubting. You can run a standard fork if you like, but it'll just neutralise the G2 handling effects.
http://www.singletrackworld.com/mod/...ges/2056-9.jpghttp://www.singletrackworld.com/mod/...ges/2056-8.jpg
There were more graphs to prove how well it'd work, but as anyone knows, graphs don't substitute for actually riding the thing even for a short while, so I set out onto the short Rustler's Loop trail with Brian from Trek UK. It's two miles or so of 8" wide hard baked dirt with rocky outcrops and deep dust at the side that punished line errors on the fast rolling, not very knobbly Bontrager tyres with immediate loss of traction and a trip towards the small cacti that were around. Just the place for riding a strange new bike then. On the climb up to the start, the bike felt stable and rangey, like most GF bikes and there wasn't any noticeable wallow from the Pro Pedal equipped Fox shock and the G2 Prototype logo'd Manitous felt smooth but not too bobby. Onto the singletrack, which is where all the handling work has gone in, the bike felt capable but very strange coming from my usual bikes.

I think a serious long term use of a G2 bike on home trails would be an better place to utter pronouncements on the handling, but here are my impressions whether you want them or not. The handling seemed neutral at all speeds and front and rear ends felt nicely planted without having to noticeably shift weight around. It wasn't a bike I felt I could flick around but it went where it was pointed with a minimum of fuss and once you'd found the line it was possible to make fast and efficient progress with minimal steering input. The back end did a good job of ironing out lumps and drops to the point of being able to forget about it and get on with riding, the same applying to the fork which tracked well, ironed out bumps well and there was minimal flex from either end. Again, these are merely first impressions and I think a lot more time would be needed to make any sort of pronouncement on the HiFi and Genesis 2.0 but it's certainly an interesting concept.

A couple of fun laps later, one of them trying to keep up with the rather fast Guy Kesteven and Trek's even faster tame racer Travis Brown (of Singlespeed World's branding fame) my lungs were making some strange wheezing noises and although I think Travis was just cruising, I was in a state best described as "hanging". I climbed back up the hill to the safety of the Trek marquee for some nice cold drinks and a butty. Lovely stuff.