Well, on closer examination, I think you are right – some of the entries on the Fisher site imply all 29ers are G2 – but when you view the specs for the individual bikes, the Ferrous, and, strangely, the Superfly, do not list G2 in the frame spec.

So, thanks – there my be a carbon fork out there for me now for the Ferrous.

Now I need to ride one somewhere to verify the geometry will be close enough to my HiFi for a meaningful training experience – with, of course, the nicely different steel ride. The jury is definitely out now.

Thanks again, and memo to GF – should all your 29ers be G2, or, at least, should there be steel and carbon G2s available?

Obviously, I’m stiil learning.

Lee

Not a true 29er. But I know someone that is running Nanoraptors on his 60cm CX..you know him too GT.

I for one love my CX. It is a great bike. It handles well on pavement and on gravel. So far I have used only 700×38 WTB Interwolf tires on my bike. The interwolfs worked well for me on buff gravel roads. By buff, I mean gravel roads that had not be recently reworked and had all the gravel pushed back into the middle of the road. I could ride well used gravel roads all day long by just following the tracks made by car wheels. And on pavement around town the interwolfs work well. There are a few around my area that run the Panaracer Fire Cross 700×45 tires on their CX’s. I would not run that tire urban, but I bet on light single track and gravel roads it is pretty darn good.

My point here is that the 29er touring bike is a cool idea, but IMHO consumers already have an option with bikes like the Surly CX. I am currently formulating in my head what my perfect gravel road touring bike will be like in the future. I hope to get a custom bike built a few years down the road, but for now my Surly fits the bill very nicely.

Peace out

Fork slow touring style handling G2 bike, one could fit a fork with intermediate offset. Many of those are in circulation.

When picking bikes, do look very carefully at the axle-crown fork length (after any sag) they supposed in giving their head tube angle.

It has dawned on me I probably would have liked the Dual Sport better than the Fast City, had I known about it, if only for the reason that it more closely approximates the mountain bike.

Now, I think I will do a Ferrous 29er, utimately equipped with the G2 Switchblade when it comes out, for my main training bike and alternate mountain ride, with a second wheelset for the around-town training. This will give me a lot of training benefit with the same geometry as the HiFi.

The Monona gets fenders, rack and commuting duty.

I think a lot of touring bikes can run fairly big tires – I’ve fit 700x45c tires in my urbane touring bike. I’ve done a bunch of fire trails with it and 700x35c and 32c tires, lots of fun, if sketchy at times.

I know the usual signs of a good touring bike are a longer wheel base, lower bottom bracket, a fork/geometry that’s gives a neutral to slow handing, tubes meant to be flexy but not noodly at weight and braze ons all over the place. That’d be cool to see for 700c wheels with lots of clearance. I’m not sure it’ll happen in big way, but I’m sure there will be a niche market for it.