From my interview with Gary Fischer:

“I thought that this will only be for athletes, I mean it is hard to do this out here! But it blew my mind, some guys and ladies that I made bikes for – it changed their lives! They would tell me ‘Man, I love it out here!’ You go out in the woods and we used to say that you get rid of the cops, the cars and the concrete and it’s total freedom. And it was at that time that I said that THIS is going to get big, this is gonna be something”

It is not every day that you get to sit down with a living legend. I was humbled and incredibly happy to get to do this interview with the Man himself: Gary Fisher. In the mid-seventies he made the first bikes that he later together with friends started to produce under the name “mountainbikes”, the rest is history.

Gary Fischer tells his mind blowing story, from a tiny kid who talked his way into a road bike club, to working with bands like The Grateful Dead, being active during the “summer of love” in the Haight-Ashbury area of San Fransisco and of course the invention of the first mountainbikes.

We also talk about the future of cities, the future of commuting and transportation as well as Gary Fischers work to encourage mayors in North- and South America to make bike-friendly cities.

“In the mid sixties you could drive your car out there, there were no gates, chains, nothing! So a lot of hippies started camping out there, and it was a real fire hazard so they put gates and chains up and everything so then the bike became the golden key to the area. Noone was out in the outdoors to speak of in those days, you could ride your bike all day long and you might see one or two more people, it was a miracle!”

If you like this interview please check out the rest of the Husky International series such as a interview with legendary triathlete “Macca” McCormack, the CEO of Norrøna Jørgen Jørgensen, with freeskier Jackie Paaso, runner Max King and Lebanese adventurer Maxime Chaya.

Please subscribe to the podcast Husky, or the Husky International series, in your favourite podcast app. If you are using acast you will be rewarded with pictures, links and videos while listening to the interview.

Many thanks to Trek Sweden for setting this up.

Husky is produced in cooperation with Lundhags.

Original photo © Jesper Andersson Photography

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