i don’t have a stem over 80mm now, look at the size of this, ridden with sub 580mm flat bars with bar ends and rigid forks at the time 😯
must have flexed like crazy but i don’t seem to remember it

enormo stem by rOcKeTdOgUk, on Flickr

with the frame

97 P7 and F7 fork by rOcKeTdOgUk, on Flickr

Dude , I still have a 150 one of these that I used in the 90’s

I must have looked like I was time trialing 🙄

Snap (in pink)

Mountainbiking history ;-0

I rode a 120mm one of these

Oh how I desperately wanted a ‘shorter’ Flexstem – mine was 135mm 😯 😳

that’s longer than you are tall Mama! 🙂

mine was used with scott AT4 bars, if anyone remembers those!

from it’s 2003 incarnation as a SS

thetford by rOcKeTdOgUk, on Flickr

this was my first serious MTB i’d had a halfords apollo and a raleigh before this so this means i’ve been riding mountain bikes since about 1993, 17 years!! 😯

*feels old*

old….

I still use 130 to 150 mm stems ,what’s the problem ? being 6ft 4 with long arms I need the length I can’t ride all hunched up like a kid who has outgrown his bike

I think I was ahead of the times- in 1998 I had a 100mm badboy.

First proper mountain bike bought with the savings from doing the house conveyancing myself. £875 in 1996 complete with rigid forks and cantilever brakes!

Having only started in 2000 these pictures make me feel very beginnerish. I can imagine how that gear must have induced envy and qualified you to look down on others and especially roadies whose bikes were pretty much identical to their 1950s predecessors.

mine had a full STXrc 8sp gruppo inc canti brakes,with shimano hubs on Fir rims (worn out!) still got all the bits though. i broke two of the orange seatposts at the weld though

My 150mm flexstem gave extra travel!

That was on a 1990 ish stumpjumper and later on an Orange Prestige.

I test rode a ’96 P7 with full STXrc gruppo and then got the shop to upgrade it to LX 🙂

rubbish pic of my first ride…

My first mtb ride by simondbarnes, on Flickr

1997 – pah, try 1991 😉

Took this stunning beast out for a ride yesterday – 1991 Saracen Trekker Hydrotech – all original, including Maguras, Farmer John tyres………and a 165mm stem!