Great Cycling Brands

Technically it should be wes willits of willits bikes fame that gets the thanks for the 29er thing...he was pioneering it way before fisher...only fisher had the backing of trek to allow him to 'discover' it for the mainstream. :)

As for Pace....right up until they switched to just forks they were great...then they ditched their best product, their frame...then bought out that hideous frame that was made in the far east that looked like 80% of the other alloy frames out there. :(

Hope on the other hand have gone from strength to strength in the last 20yrs.

Also middleburn if we're on a uk tip...for being one of the few independant machine shops to still be producing after the rise and then fall of the 90's.

Shame about Pace. Like I said, I don't know what has been going on with them.

RE: the 29er thing I did not know that, had alway heard it was GF. the entire "invention" of 29er is a funny one anyway.Considering that a 29er is really just a bike with wide 700c wheels riding off road you could argue people had been doing that for years on touring bike and cross bike with over sized tyres. Wheel prob never reached 29" because of tyre availability but as big as you can get, prob made a 28" wheel. It's a bit like the fact that the yanks didn't invent off road, it's always existed in some guise or another.