We introduced you to the new Gary Fisher Superfly 100 recently, and now we’ve ridden it. Despite the name, the Superfly 100 actually has 110mm of travel, delivered by a Fox RP23 shock with new-for-2010 Boost Valve position-sensitive damping. The all-new carbon fibre frame also borrows some features from the Trek lineup, with the Active Braking Pivot back end and E2 tapered steerer setup at the front.

Fisher is making a big fuss of its super-short (by 29er standards) chainstays, achieved by moving the bottom of the seat tube forwards and using a direct-mount front derailleur (which can then be mounted at the right angle and also lacks a wrap-around clamp, thus winning a few more mm clearance). The chainstay length (as verified by the BM tape measure) is 452mm (17.8in), which is pretty short, but having gone back and looked at some other numbers we can’t help but notice that it’s only 3mm shorter than Niner’s RIP9, which also has an extra 10mm of rear travel. And it’s actually longer than that found on Santa Cruz’s Tallboy (although that has 10mm less travel).

We may seem to be banging on about chainstay length quite a lot, but it’s a pretty big deal in 29erland. Steering with bigger wheels can be sorted with head angle and fork offset, and if you’re thinking carefully enough you can maintain a sensible cockpit length and not trip over your own front wheel too. But there’s only so much you can do at the back – whichever way you look at it, the back wheel is always going to run out of space an inch and a half earlier than a 26in one. From that perspective, any chainstay length under 18.25in for a 29er is pretty good going, of course, so all the bikes we’ve mentioned are very much on the short side.

It’s important because it has a big effect on how the bike feels, although how noticeable it is depends somewhat on how you like to ride. If you like to pop the front wheel over stuff, you’ll notice immediately – with longer chainstays it’s simply harder to do. That said, even with 26in-length stays, it’s still harder to do because the axle’s further from the ground, and there’s exactly nothing you can do about that.

But enough pontification. There’s no denying that the Superfly 100 is a lively bike in all senses. While our scales made it a little heavier than the 24lb we’ve seen mooted elsewhere (we made this Large bike 12kg/26.4lb with our cheap, heavy pedals on), it’s still light for a FS 29er. Mix in fast-rolling Bontrager tyres and a frame that’s a whole world of stiffness away from the old carbon HiFi platform and the Superfly picks up speed with the kind of alacrity that you don’t really expect from a big-wheeler.

The trails at Bootleg Canyon are largely of the swoopy persuasion and are quite flattering to 29ers (we have a theory that the popularity of 29in wheels in the US is at least partially due to the bikes’ suitability to the trails found at the major US trade show…), but there are enough tighter corners to establish that Fisher’s long-offset G2 geometry remains undimmed in its effectiveness. You need to get used to the light feeling at the helm – initially it feels somewhat disconnected, but you soon figure it out. The hugely improved chassis stiffness keeps everything on track, and the Superfly was one of the best bikes we tried through the chop and braking bumps – it takes substantially more travel on a 26in bike to match it.

You can argue all around the houses about the pros and cons of 29in wheels, but if we were looking for an endurance race bike the Superfly 100 would be very near the top of the list. More details at www.fisherbikes.com