2010 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the foundation of Independent Fabrication. As a little tribute to the firm and their craftsmanship, we’ve decided to focus on the first of the 2010 bikes registered with the site – Heike Fischer’s Red Cherry Deluxe. Heike writes:

I work for waridi and we make lamps for mountain bikers (www.waridi.de). I met Ken Bloomer of ifbikes.de at “Schlaflos im Sattel” (a nicht race) in 2008. We have done some events together, and my colleague, Thomas and his girlfriend bought an IF at first. So I had the opportunity to go and trial an IF. With Ken we held a riding clinic last year and since then I’ve fallen in love with the bikes and decided to buy my own IF. I am very proud to have the first anniversary bike.

Head honcho at Indy Fabs german distributor, ifbikes.de, Ken Bloomer has established a real reputation on the euro mountain bike scene. Like most of the people who buy an IF from his outfit, Heike is a good friend. Ken writes

Waridi Sport Lights make awesome lights for riding, and they are doing a limited edition 15th Anniversary IF light for us. We worked with Heike and Waridi already last season at events and festivals. As Heike mentions, two other staff from Waridi had purchased Deluxe’s from us during the season and she had fallen in love with my wife Sandi’s Deluxe singlespeed.

So Heike came down to us in the fall with her family, we did a riding clinic here in Fuessen during which she expressed wanting to get a better fitting/ riding bike, and that is when we began to explore an IF for her. From there we did a fitting, decided on geometry and ride quality based on her riding style and goals, we selected her parts group for her and now
she is part of an even bigger family, the IF owner’s.