[Header image by Steve Thomas]
As XC bikes with 32-inch wheels are set to arrive at the UCI World Cup in 2026, along with the emergence of flat bars and suspension on gravel bikes, I can’t help but wonder if the lines are being blurred even more so when it comes to the labelling and marketing of bikes. That said, I do like a bit of blur in the mix when it comes to my bikes and riding, which keeps things fresh and fun. Somehow, while dreamily pondering over a ‘one bike to rul them all’ future, my mind drifted sweetly back to the early 1990s, when I reviewed and rode a Diamondback Override Comp, a bike then touted as a hybrid.
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Although this would have been somewhere around 1992, I can still remember the bike, and riding it. Mountain biking was positively on fire at that time, and tech innovation was moving at warp speed. Although, in many ways, that bike made some kind of sense to me (and does all the more so in hindsight), because there was just something in there that didn’t quite distinguish or identify it. Perhaps it was the labelling and marketing? After all, mountain biking was the new cool and raucous kid on the block, and the off-road world had the image to match.
Life back then on flat bars off-road was all dayglo and bold; while this relatively mild-mannered and reserved hybrid fella wasn’t exactly hitting the cool button, and let’s face it – calling anything a hybrid doesn’t exactly help with its sex appeal.
After all, we had left much of that gangly mixed terrain bike confusion behind in the ’70s and ’80s, an analogue time when hybrids by other, or perhaps by no names, were all the go. I guess, even the original clunkers could theoretically be considered as home-grown hybrids.
Many a bike brand had tinkered with the hybrid idea between the late ’80s and early ’90s, with such (now) retro classics as the Schwinn Crisscross and the Cannondale SH400, 700c do-it-all bikes with a distinct early mountain bike feel and look about them. Perhaps they just emerged, in an identity sense, at completely the wrong time, at least as far as “serious” cyclists were concerned.
I can remember thinking at the time that, given a flashy paint job, a slight tweaking on gearing and kit, and this bike would have been far better accepted and embraced, and, if I remember rightly, a couple of top UK pros raced it.
Over the following years, that particular model did evolve into a 29’er mountain bike, which is great to see. I do wonder if the concept of bigger wheels had been embraced more back then, would we have been big wheeling it ever since the ’90s? On that, other major brands did experiment with bigger wheels and mullet wheel setups too in the ’90s; and those who rode them mostly liked the feel too, though it would seem those ideas and concepts were also born a couple of decades too early.
Despite having personally taken little notice of hybrids for many a year, on looking past the main pages, it seems that hybrid-branded bikes and their derivatives are still alive and kicking, yet, for some reason, still less so at the ‘serious’ end of the sport. The hybrid market is also growing in certain areas, and several brands have backed that commuter-practical identity, which makes sense in many countries and markets, which is great for cycling all round.
Would a decent mid-range hybrid bike with a few tweaks be the ideal do-it-all bike for me these days? Something that could handle rolling gravel-tar rides, some mixed terrain bike packing, a dash of regular old school XC style trail riding? Quite likely it would. Could I banish the hybrid tag and the image of an old Raleigh Wayfarer chained to a churchyard gate from my time-jaded mind? I’m not quite sure about that one, though, ripping it up on a hybrid would kind of hold its own sense of individuality and cool, and all without the intention of doing so. Maybe the hybrid bike I’m talking about is the newer all-road style that’s cropping up, or well… gravel bikes in general.
Who knows, perhaps a couple of higher spec and rebranded ‘non-hybrids’ ridden by a few big names would change the future direction of these undersung bikes? Maybe a rad new name like ‘hyperbrid’ would help?
“For a strange kind of fashion, there’s a wrong and right”, chanted Nick Kershshaw on The Riddle back in 1984 – was he somehow, inadvertently, thinking about those emerging home-brewed hybrid bikes?
