Gary Fisher Build 1

For those who have known new and old me, 2 wheels have been a theme throughout my life. It’s where my younger self constantly pushed boundaries of neighborhood exploration, my older (old) self found presence for the first time on the Ducati, and now, through all of this work I’ve been doing, new me constantly is drawn to the beauty, mechanics and explorative curiosity building and riding bikes and motorcycles provide to me.

Months back I was reinvigorated to get on two pedal wheels again. Astonished by new bike prices that are following the trend of planned obsolescence, and required upgrades that only applies to racers and not me (yes I still battle with this), I decided for a resto-mod of sorts.

Enter the 1996 Gary Fisher Hoo Koo E Koo XL Frame I found at the local bike collective.

A TIG welded (by Trek after the acquisition) in USA frame using USA made True Temper Triple Butted Chromoly, this frame is light, simple and the perfect size to build an all terrain bike to crush fire roads around my house and test some skill building on the brazing front before I decide to go headfirst into my first bike frame build.

This all started when a close friend graciously donated me his 1990s race bike which was the equivalent of throwing a match onto a pool of gasoline he’s poured into my psyche over the past decade.

Within an instant a chase to build something from this inspirational bike began and the pieces started coming together.

1996 Gary Fisher Hoo Koo E Koo XL Frame

Early 2000’s Fox Talas RLC (Adjustable Travel, Lockout, Disk Brake comptable, perfect for what I was planning)

Early Mockups with parts I had laying around.

Quickly evolving into a Drop Bar MTB with a converted modern Shimano Deore 1×11 Drivetrain. Minimum front fork travel is 90mm, max is 130mm, I plan on tearing the fork apart and removing 1″ of travel for this application by adding a spacer into the stack.

Era specific racks found for carrying groceries and cargo

Handlebar bag and wheel swapout with my wife’s unridden 26″r. Hope Pro Evo 2 hubs, which make the greatest noise. The General layout and Idea was created.

Playing around with some cable routing ideas :

Mocking up rear disk brake install

Front GRX Flat Mounts modified to 180mm Rotors

Scope creep entered and I found myself relacing these beautiful hope hubs to 27.5″ diameter wheels with some DT Aero spokes I also scored for pennies at the bike collective. Lacing wheels has been on my bucket list of mechanical accomplishments. Way easier than I had imagined, not sure why I waited so long to try it.

Now rolling on 27.5″ with 2.1″ tires! A perfect setup that opens up a lot more tire options.

I should’ve been taking more in progress photos, but this projects has evolved 15-60minutes at a time over the past few months.

Before starting on the big brazing and modifying tasks, I checked frame straightness to the best of my tooling abilities and identified what needed to be removed and added