Salsa Fargo

Fancy some adventure touring? Then Salsa have the bike for you, the Fargo – which incidentally gets Day one's WTF! Award. What we have here is a rigid 29er mountain bike with drop bars, Avid discs, yes, drop bars, five (count 'em) bottle cages – extreme touring being thirsty work apparently - Shimano XT Deore drivetrain, Shimano bar end shifters, and Salsa's own 29in wheels sporting WTB Vulpine 2.1in tyres. Sounds crazy, but it might just work. After all some of the early MTB legends raced bikes with drop bars, and although the absence of suspension might raise a few eyebrows it wasn't that long ago the downhillers were racing on rigid steel steeds. And those big volume tyres are going to soak up a fair bit of trail shock. Steve Johnson from Salsa confirmed that it had been extensively tested in some very wild country over some very technical terrain and we could see that it might well have something to offer long haul expedition riders going to places where the roads might be bad to non-existent. It is steel so it's repairable, although spare tyres might present a problem. You can see one in the flesh at the London Cycle show in October. In the US the Fargo sells for $1600, UK prices have yet to be confirmed.