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Gary's imagination paints with colors and broadbrush strokes, so it is no surprise that the mountain bike

is going to create a revoludon in urban areas. Kids are seeingwhat can be done on bikes and that thev don,t have to drivea car someplace ro ride a bike. They can ride rheir bikes overto Ray's and go wild.

I remember cobbing up a bunch ofbikes for the LarkspurCanyon Gang, and then we went up the coast to tour th;Redwoods. We met oul PE coach from Redwood High Schoolat a park whete we were camping and he was astounded. \Uewere considered to be the unatNetic bunch in high school,and therc we were, touring with our bikes in the middle ofnowhere. Now, Redwood High has 60 iiders on its team; lotsof them are girls. Every high school in Marin County has amountain bik€ team now'

R.C.: You are on the boartl oJ directors of the NICA(National Interscholastic CUcIing Assotitttion), right?

Garyr Yes. The NICA has more sponsorship than USACycling. Does that surprise you?

R.C.: Not reallg. I tlon't put much faith in those gu\s. youwere tnvobecl with NORBA aII the tuaq thraugh its d,issolutioninto USA Cgcling...

Gary: I was on the board forever, and I had no effect.They'd all nod their heads when I'd make a suggestion and

icon gravitates toward monster events like Birkebeineirittet.Twelve years earlier, Gary was raving to me about the Rocd'Azur-a weeklong French off-road cycling festival thatenjoys mind-boggling attendance and features riding andracing for every discipline. including the UCI BMXSupercross finals this year. Ca1 " vision ol the furure is al5olarger than 1ife, but don't think ofhim as a pie-in-the skydreamer. His roots go deep into cycling culture-before ihebirth of the mountain bike-and th€ foundation of hisvisions is always: "The more people who ride bikes, the bet-ter the world will become." Read the following stream-ofconsciousness interview and you will unde$tand why.

Nchard, Cunninghqnu So, about the fl,Ltare afmountain hihcs

Gary Fisherr The U.S. $.ill again be a superpowerbecause of the high school leagues. The U.S. ls now becom-ing much more similar to the Euro countries. with a widebase of cycling ralenl. We are going lo have a generarion ofkids who really understand BIKE-and the world,s mostenthusiastic sponsors: parents.

Ray's Indoor Mountain Bike Park is a huge influence; he

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Our excuse is that bike racing isnever going to be as popular as baseballor football, but that isn't right. Now wehave a bunch of new riders coming r-rp.High school racing is going to bump up(ollege racing. And mountain bike rcc-ing is a 1ot saf€r than those othersports.

R,C.: Fram the perspectire af one fihaha., hpett with trtotttttaitt bikinl].1qcr usi ception, hotL) far haye yt e cowe ? Whereare x,e lleaded?

Gary: I turn 60 this November, and Ican't believe how skill levels haveimproved. Riders are so much betternow. They are really movingl I $aswatching old movies of the CrestedButte Fat Tire Festivals in the '80s, and

New levdl: "l can't believe how skill levels have imoroved."Gary leading the '1983 Carlsbad Shimano race.,

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I couldn't believe how slowly we descended and how longit took us to get through a water crossing. We'd almoststop. I think there are more good riders, more good people,more good factories and it k€eps on growing and gettingbetter.

The sport is no longer a teenaget and it is going placesagain. Definitely after the Adanta Olympics, the sportreally went into the doldrums. Now it is real1y going we11,especially gravity racing.

We are going to have a lot more electronics on our bikes.I'm sure you've heard of Apple's patents fot an electtonic

interface with a bicycle. Suspension will get a lot more elec-tric now. Cannondale is already going that way, and Shimanois planning a lot more electuonics; they are all over it.

Of course, the simple bike will not die. The single speed isalways going to be with us. You don't have to compete withothers, because 'I'm on a single-speed.' There is the disciplineof the big gear, but the biggest reason for the single-speed isthat they don't die-ever. 'fhere is nothing but a chain towear out. The single-speed is the public saying, 'I don't wantmy bike to wear out:

Huge numbers of people don't want to ride a bike lecause

theJ hate dealing with this stuff They can't fix a flat.'Wotuen don't want to dde alone because they don't

. want to be stranded with a flat or a mechanical. Ask10 women to take off a front wheel, and maybe thteecan do it. We have a lot of peopl€ who think thatworking on bikes is easy, but we have a 1ot more whowon't.

I love rocket science. We have a lot of tech at Trek.Our bikes can be very complex. Jose Gonzales [a Treksuspension engineer] designs some pretty complicatedstuff that needs some understanding to peform dght.Our challenge is to ensure that our bike is set up cor-rectly when it comes out of the dealer.

We could offer training online, like traffic schools.Now, mechanics all come from a school like Park's orthe Ba.nett Institute, but we don't hav€ tim€ to sendm€chanics away for future training lonce they areworking at a shopl, so it has to be online.

R.C.: Lo1laing at the big picture, wh&t is Uour risionof c!.tcling itu the U.S.?q$hy: It was proposed in Toronto in '94 and later

ir'Denver in 2004, and picked up by William F.Buckley in an op ed, in the Washitgtotx Post t]Ilatcycling is the world's fastest and most efficient

R.C.: What are gou working ot now?Gary: I have not been as fit as l usually am. I have

been focusing on urban bikes, and the electric bike isreally going we1l. You are really the fastest man in townon an electric bike. David Chu, president of the Board ofSupervisors of San Francisco's North Beach area, says,'I'm the fastest man in town. I can reach eight m€etings,where I could only do five using the city Iimo, with non€ed to find parking.'

It's partially the green thing, partially the fitness thing,and mainly the speed thing. In Asia, they have cars,buses, trains and subways-and bikes are still the fastestway to get around. I think being tralped in a car is theworst.

R.C.: I em sure th&t you have experienced. the samemamenL I often see nountain bihes that I bailt Uears agound,er basbogs, camlnatinlJ to worlx.

Gary: I see so many old Fishers under busboys. I sawone in a homeless encampment recently in San Francisco.The bike was doubling to hold up a tarp for his tent. Youcan't find used bikes now, because bikes are at such a pre-mium. It's hard to get used bikes!

I keep warning Trek: "You're going to ne€d a lot ofurban bikes."

QQ I don't belierre ttrat anrJ GrJ Lrsinrrented ttre spctrt. \ife jurst aaderreloped it as \ re \ rent alonq - -method of transportation in the cities.

Imagine this: You build elevated tubeways, andthey have one level for each direction of travel.Ventilators blow air the same way that traffic isgoing, so there is always a natural draft pushing youalong. Riders would be completely safe, away fromthe city streets.

Driving in cities is not fun. I sp€nd most of thetime crawling around at 10 to 20 miles per hour. Wedon't need cars in the city. We do need personaltransportation in the suburbs. We need to go places,but not in the city. The Toronto tubeway design lookstoo modern and scary. The Denver one is toostraight.

Michael Ball from Rock Racing will come back andwe'll do an illegal hack. We want to make a track witla clear arch around it so the riders will make their owndraft. Let's not make it a boring oval. We could make ita figure eight, with an ov€rh€ad crossing. We could addgo-go girls, and then let's make it €ven more fun andmake it in Vegas. Betting on mountain bik€s in Vegas?Nobody wants a more clear and indisputabl€ endingthan gamblers. They won't want diugs.

I think that drug use is getting better than it was. Isaw a lot of suffering at the Tour and at the circ, and Ithink that it isn't going back to the bad times we justcame through.

R.C,: The bicqcle has come a long way. It's hard to beliel)ethat so much chaftge could, occur in one lifetime,

Gary: I worked at a bike shop, road raced, wrote forBicycli,ng, worked in a liquor shop, and worked a movingjob one day a w€ek with Charley Kelly. I lived in a shackin downtown Fairfax that used to be rented by W. C.Fields-five rooms in downtown Fairfax. Before that, Idid light shows in San Francisco, all the big venues: theWinterland, the Babylon Ballroom, th€ old Fillmore. Wemade all the equipment ourselves in Alan Cormier'sdad's garage. He had a milling machine.

The only subject I got straight A's in was metal shop. Iwas always criticized for not building a frame, but I did-n't have to. I didn't want to. What's the point? I couldmake a beautiful frame, but I $/anted to focus on the big-ger picture. I learned engineering from all the people Iworked with who understood engineering. I know whatit takes to make bikes, and I am not satisfied to makejust one.

I was accused of stealing the 29er. I don't lik€ beingcriticized like that. I don't beli€ve that any of us invent€dth€ sport. We-just developed it as we went along. It usedto b€ lonely out there. There were a lot of good ideas, butonly a few people were doing it. Now, there are a lot ofpeople making it happen.

You know, if I had the chance to do it all over again, Iwould. Wlat a great time to live in. f,l