Rare in the Extreme, British Exotica

I have a feeling that they were closely linked to a distributor or bike shop chain as well?

Click to expand...

My memory is a bit fuzzy on this one but I think the same company had an office above On Your Bike at London Bridge and was at one time the Klien importer for the UK.

However, this was all before I worked at OYB, so some time prior to '94.

They were nice bikes, but they kept them a bit too.... plain/bland for my liking.

The Top of the range version had the lovely and rare browning suspension fitted

Good to see this ones a cut above its bland childhood.

RBG

Fusion

Yes it's the one that was split on here, similar geometry to a Kona, without the seat tube extension, same numbers as a 17 Kona or 17.5 Rocky.
The oversize headtube really makes a difference to the tracking on the front wnd and it is very stable at low speeds.
The BB heaight is unusually high for this era too, as they were pretty much 11.5 to 12 inches as standard, this is 12.5 with the standard issue forks.
I believe this was an "on the wall" demo frame, as it should have a Canti hanger bridge and it doesn't, tha Paint is also unusual as this model should have been Black, with Silver decals. It's a bright plum colour.
I don't think Fusion did push them hard enough, unlike Orange Pace and other UK Marques BITD, but they had serious aspirations looking at the build quality and tubeset used.