Help me understand why I like old late 80's Fishers...

r0gue

Old School Hero
They were produced in Japan, and of modest quality for the day. All of the specimens I can locate are at least a little rough. But I just can't seem to resist them. Is it the narrow tubes? The relaxed geometry? Upright rider position...? Or is it my early cyclist exposure to them? Is that perhaps what draws us each to our own bent? Our own unique history... :?
 
I know what you mean - everyone at school at Raleigh Mustangs and old 10 speeds but one kid had a Gary Fisher HooKooEKoo circa 1988. Fantastic green paintjob, chainstay u-brake and impossibly cool BioPace chain rings. As kids do we all hated him(!)

The HooKooEKoo looked the business...
 
I think 88 was my favorite year! Though I'd kill for a yellow and green Mt. Tam which I think would be a bit earlier.
 
Hells Bells those bikes looked like they could conquer anything - certainly their catalogues at the time oozed a certain something
 
I just posted a pic up of a 88 HK.
Look on the threads...

Muddyfox courier restores blog shock....

Admittedly not a great pic of the bike.
anyway .enjoy.

I love Fishers too. Two .
I have a ten ish yr old Big Sur . Loooong. With a short stem its brill.
My current ' modern bike' , is a Mullet. '06 .Bit relaxed and ' jumpy ' , but with the seat up, its ace for XC.

Maybe its their (our) quirky individuality.
 

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I have my fathers old Hoo Koo E Koo in the basement (fuselage). I think it's a 90 or 91.

Fairly heavy but stiff and nice to ride. A strange paint job; green with small silver "dots" all over. Anyone know what year that was?

Originally equipped with a seriously bad Suntour low end group (I don't rember what group but it was all black as far as I can remember).

I remember we rebuilt it with Suntour XC pro cranks from 94 (great cranks) and the rest was 735 XT and DX parts. Then it worked great and my father did ride that bike a lot!!

Later I built it with M737 (but kept the crank) and 517 SUP rims.

After that I split it and now it's a fuselage in my basement. I will probably build it again some day but then with complete XT(735) or DX.....but still keeping the crank!

:)
 
im saying nothing!
btw did someone say they have an '88 hkek? in 18" and blue perchance? and was looking to swap it for a brilliant '91 trek 6000?
 
Just my opinion, but I personally thought that the fisher hoo koo e koo pretty much marked a watershed in mtb history. I remember reading a review, possibly by John Stevenson, where the reviewer said “ if you want to go fast off road get a hoo koo e koo”. He raved about the race geometry and the new fangled cro mo pipe stem it had. It was probably just the timing of it coming out, but it was the first time i was introduced to the (silly) notion of race developed meaning better. It seemed to mark the end for bikes that were marketed as “all terrain” and the start of bikes being marketed as “race developed/ lighter/ faster...etc"
 
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