Gary Fisher Sugar 2

Price: £1800

Frame: 6061 Aluminium with carbon seatstays

Fork: Manitou Mars

Stop: Avid SD5, XT levers

Go: XTR rear mech, XT front mech and shifters, Bontrager Race chainset.

Wheels: Bontrager Race wheelset, Bontrager Revolt XC

Trim: WTB Speed V saddle, Bontrager Race 2014 seatpost, Bontrager 90mm stem, Bontrager 620 Race Modified handlebars.

Total weight: 26.7lb

From: Fisher UK 01908 282626

Test Logbook

Approx 25 hours on Year 2000 bikes – Swiss Alps, Yorkshire Dales, Pennines, local singletrack. Approx 16 hours on Year 2001 bikes – Wisconsin woods, Usual Yorkshire abuse.

Gary Fisher’s Sugar was designed from the outset as a lightweight full suspension race bike, and since it was launched last year it has become the most succesful full suspension bike on the World Cup circuit. With Olympic and multiple world Champion Paolo Pezzo campaigning on a signature baby pink Sugar throughout the 2000 season it’s also been extremely popular amongst privateer racers and lightweight trailhounds.

The Sugar is now in it’s second season but in the good old tradition of if it ain’t broke, they haven’t done much fixing. The drop top tube frame remains largely unchanged with externally butted headtube, throat gusset and bottom bracket shell for weight saving. The cast main pivot section is in line with the middle chainring on the seat tube, dropping away with a cast bridge to the tapered chainstays. The ‘cunning feature’ of the Sugar (and now the Fuel and Adept from brother brands Trek and Klein) is the use of a vertically compliant chainstay section to allow enough rear movement without the use of a chainstay or seatstay pivot. This year both the Sugar One and Two get the carbon stays which save 50g on the thinwall aluminium stays of the cheaper models. The seatstays are then linked to the shock by a long, sleek cast bridge which pivots on the short B*Link linkage that also supports the Cane Creek AD-12 shock.

The handling is straight from Gary Fisher’s Genesis system. Using a long centre section (59cm) on our medium size test bike combined with compact rear end and short (90mm) fast steering cockpit to keep fairly normal overall dimensions but significantly alter the ride.

As we’ve said, the Genesis system makes Fisher’s one of the few “stock” bikes with individual (rather than benchmark neutral) handling characteristics. The short cockpit is light and synapse fast diving into corners, letting you push tyres to the slide and then collect and correct steering traction at any speed. The short rear end also flicks through very fast for immeadiate kick from corner to corner and short stays keep drive impressively direct considering the light weight.

Riders more used to neutral bikes may find the immeadiate steering slightly intimidating or downright treacherous, but the long centre section makes Genesis bikes stable at speed through long sweepers or in straight line. However on the Sugar, the thin walled dropped tube mainframe twists noticeably under heavy or savage lateral loading, which is great for ‘smearing’ traction through corners but can also lead to dramatic “tank slap” (bars waggling from side to side) at speed if you provoke it.

In-line with it’s race credentials the Sugar’s suspension is designed to absorb shock without sapping speed sensation. The Cane Creek shocks are renowned for high seal stiction but this reluctance to initial movement suits the flex stay Sugar well . Under normal conditions the feel is taut, slight smoothing – rather than plush and totally levelling – but whump it off a landing or straightline an unavoidable block and it sucks up the impact before returning rapidly to a level of slight sag with the supple stays keeping the feel live. The AD 12 shock is very succeptible to small pressure changes – about 10 – 15 psi between wallowing under power and virtual lockout, and though it has compression and rebound damping they’re allen key rather than thumbscrew which is a pain. For reference we settled for 125 -130 psi with 1/5 rebound and minimum compression.

Up front the Mars forks wander slightly under load but it complements the feel of the frame as a whole. Our main complaint is the lack of external rebound damping. The stock “Sport” damping is ideal if you run the forks hard but if you want some plush and smoothness (we ran around 70 psi) then rebound is slow. The non-adjustable negative spring is also too slow to extend fast enough for grabbing traction from trail undulations if you’re pushing hard through corners.

The rest of the kit is all fine benchmark gear, although the Bontrager chainrings are noticeably slower changing than Shimano equivalents and from experience you’d notice less arm stiffness on more rigid frames. The WTB Speed V saddle caused some riders to feel bow legged but was liked by others, while the wide 620mm Bontrager flat bars were universally praised for keeping a firm hand on the headstrong steering.

The wheels themselves are lightweight units using radial spoking on the front wheel and the offside rear, but we’ve never had any problems with running them on any of the Trek / Fisher / Klein family we’ve tested over the years. The tyres are well suited to the bike in that they’re supple and fast with enough tread to keep a skilled rider upright in most conditions but there’s one big problem.

Basically even these low tread rollers barely fit through the frame, and as soon as any mud starts to cling to the tyres it fouls the seat and chainstay bridges, any form of clay (or that autumn favourite, mud + leaf) will lock the whole rear end up in a few yards. Running a 1.9 or smaller tyre is the obvious answer and we doubt that’ll worry most racers who habitually run narrower tyres, but it’s a big problem for riders who enjoy comfier rubber.

The Sugar is without doubt one of the most responsive and agile full suspension bikes around. Fast twitch Genesis geometry combined with the taut, short suspension action and spring within the frame itself fires the relatively low weight from point to point with inspiring speed. We’re a little suprised that the weight isn’t slightly lower given the race (and price) tag, but it responds and accelerates sharply and there’s a few pounds to lose with smart (but expensive) upgrading.

The componentry is all good solid gear that’ll survive a fair dose of trailing, but the fork could do with external rebound adjustment. Tyre clearance certainly bothered us, but narrower rubber should sort it and it hasn’t been a concern for our reader reviewer.

Performance: 4.5/5

Value: 4/5

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