Singletrack/MTB
Gravel/All-road
Dirt-road Touring
Fat-bike
Our fourth Reader’s Rig Week special comes from Aidan in North Carolina, who shares their practical, do-it-all 1990 Gary Fisher Hoo Koo E Koo and a little about their love of giving old bikes another lease on life. Find more from Aidan here…
Words and photos by Aidan Lawrence Halpin
Hello, I’m Aidan Lawrence Halpin (they/them), a graphic designer, bag maker, bike builder, and bike messenger from Durham, North Carolina. I got into bikes, as many do, when I was in college.
I found an old Sears with a Sturmey Archer three-speed in a dumpster and rode it everywhere until I was hit by a drunk driver at the end of my freshman year. I woke up with seven broken ribs, a punctured lung, a fractured skull and jaw, and lots of bruises and confusion… primarily confusion over what happened to my bike. No one would help me find it, but it showed back up outside my dorm a week later. I spent that summer rebuilding that bike as a fixie and stripping the brakes off. From there, I became an avid cyclist, riding everywhere I could and eventually becoming a bike messenger. All this to say: I’ve always been the scrappy type of cyclist, taking stuff that was probably going to get thrown away and putting it (back) to good work. I never thought I could get more into bikes than I was as a fixie punk delivering food without tip shouting, “Brakes are death.” I was wrong.
I got into distance cycling and bikepacking and did it all fixed for years until I signed up for Tour De Frankie, a pretty long gravel race starting in Mexico City a couple of years ago. That was the only thing that made me get gears, and I gotta say, I was wrong about gears and brakes both! They’re pretty sick. Since then, I’ve become a decent bike mechanic, always trying to learn new and old skills around the bike. I’ve also been bikepacking more and more as the years and obsession grow.
I like throwing all my stuff onto my bike and riding around knowing all I’ve got to do the next day is the same thing again… it also helps that I get to do all of this with my bike-loving girlfriend. We buy piles of bikes and spend our evenings building old ones into new rides, always trying to make them as fun and useful as possible. We practically have a co-op in our basement space. We want everyone to love bikes as much as we do, and we think many people don’t get the opportunity to have bikes that are fun without spending near or over a grand. We try to give people that opportunity. We build bikes with love for people around us (for cheap!). I love bikes so much and how far they can bring you away from where you started and how close they can bring you to others—all by human power alone!
My main bike is this 1989-91 era Gary Fisher Hoo Koo E Koo in a beat-up but very bright red with fun little spiderwebbing all over it. My friends and I all lovingly call it “the McFisher” (mostly to differentiate it from my other blue Fisher of the same era). I built this bike up as a “do anything anywhere” build with bombproof and easy-to-find parts as my driving force. It’s got a nearly original drivetrain, which I figured would work well into the future if it still worked when I got a hold of it. It has a new cockpit, but everything just happened to match, which makes me happy: Dia Compe levers with Dia Compe cantis, Suntour Barcons with a Suntour X-1 drivetrain, and all that jazz.
- Frame/Fork: 1990 Gary Fisher Hoo Koo E Koo
- Rims: Velocity Cliffhangers, 26” 32H
- Hubs: Velocity Dynamo (front) / Shimano Deore LX 7-speed (rear)
- Tires: ittoria Mezcals 26 x 2.1
- Handlebars: Zipp Service Course 70 XPLR 44cm
- Headset: Gary Fisher YST Evolution Alloy
- Crankset: Suntour X-1 triple (46/35/24)
- Pedals: Race Face Chesters
- Cassette: Suntour 11-34 7-speed
- Derailleur(s): Suntour X-1 3×7
- Brakes: Dia Compe 986 Cantis into Dia Compe AGC 251s
- Shifter(s): Suntour Barcons
- Saddle: Brooks C17 Cambium
- Seatpost: Gary Fisher Alloy
- Stem: Thomson X2 10 degree 90mm
- Front bags: Homemade “Box bag”
- Frame bags: Homemade “Hammock bag”
- Rear bags: Swift Industries Olliepack
- Accessory bags: Panniers for comfy campin’
- Lights: Sinewave Beacon 2 Dynamo, Supernova Airstream rear light
I put my favorite bars on it, requiring a stem adapter and a stem to make that work (goodbye, 120mm stem). I built up a set of cliffhangers with a dynamo for this bike, invested in a Sinewave Beacon 2, got some racks, and called it a day. I made the front and frame bags on this bike. The bags align with this bike’s ethos: you don’t need much to do a lot, at least not as long as the not-much is well-planned and put together. I’m forever growing as a cyclist, designer, seamstress, bike mechanic, and person. This bike keeps me growing!
I’ve taken this bike on lots of trips, going to the mountains and remote islands. I love its simplicity and all of the very mechanical aspects of it. I just took it on a 250-mile overnighter, and it was such a champ. The next week, I rode it another 100! Toward the end of this past summer, my girlfriend and I took our bikes to Cumberland Island off the coast of southern Georgia, an island the size of Manhattan where almost no cars are allowed, and the bike was perfect for that. I’ve taken it to the beach, mountains, and around all the gravel roads I can find in the Piedmont… and also to work most days.
This bike replaced a far more modern gravel bike I built up (hydraulic disc brakes, 1×11 indexed shifter, 650B, etc.), and I’m glad it took its place! Having an old bike with super simple parts comforts me, especially as much of the riding I love is in the middle of nowhere. I’d rather re-run a brake cable than try to bleed a line trailside. And thanks to my girlfriend’s encouragement, I have become one of those friction-loving people, and now I have opinions on which parts from the 80s are better than others… a blessing and a curse that keeps me glued to Facebook Marketplace always.
Ride bikes! Give love (not to cars)! Don’t stress the small stuff! Bikes are infinitely liberating!
You can follow Aidan on Instagram.
Send Us Your Bikepacking Rig
Use the form below to submit your bikepacking rig. We’ll choose one per week to feature in a Reader’s Rig Dispatch and on Instagram. To enter, email us your best photo of the bike (preferably at a 90° angle), your Instagram username (optional), and a short description of you and your rig. If your bike is selected, we’ll need a total of five photos and a little bit more info.
Readers Rig
Further Reading
Make sure to dig into these related articles for more info...
Please keep the conversation civil, constructive, and inclusive, or your comment will be removed.
