1984-85 razzing round the field at the back of our house on a pink girls bike with Frosties reflectors
85-92 razzing about hills on old BMX / Grifter / random road bike
92-94 razzing about the hills on a raleigh mustang
94-97 razzing about the hills on Orange Prestige / Orange Elite
97-98 Racing on my Marin Rift Zone
99-2003 BMX
03-08 nothing
08-now Kona SS & Marin Rift Zone
I've been riding for 25 years, bloody hell, quarter of a century, you'd think I'd be good at it by now
1988!! 
1986- After years of offroad motorcycling and road cycling I thought I'ld combine the two but nearly coughed my lungs up on the first ride and put the bike back in the shed for a few months. Tried again on a less ambitious route and have been hooked ever since.
Not my first but a very early bike was a Saracen with a chain stay rear u-brake. What a genius design!
1986 here too - on the first Marin Palisades Trail in the country 
Wrote my degree thesis on the management of mountain biking in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1992. Used my girlfriends bike for "research purposes", and got hooked, despite my first bike being a Kirk Revolution
If a Red Raleigh Grifter counts as an early MTB 1981 
However first off road around what became the Afan Argoed trails around 1987 wow 22 years and am still crap!
1991 - when a colleague at work with a stumpjumper took me up to the lakes. I hired a Nishiki something (I think) in Ambleside and tried to keep up with him. After a couple of hours of coughing and nearly puking I thought it was the best thing I'd tried on two wheels.
Came home and bought a GT Tequesta. And I've still got it - many changes later (including replacing that bl00dy useless u-brake) but now used as my commuter.
First MTB in 1989. An oversized (you'll grow into it) Emmelle Cougar. 30 - 40lb of Hi-ten steel. Steel wheels, badly functioning canti brakes and 15 sis gears
Soon moved onto a Muddy Fox Courier Comp as soon as I saved up enough pocket money to buy a 2nd hand one 
August 1985 - hired a Muddy Fox Bigfoot a bit like this one, only the previous model:
and went riding along the riverbank path from Sunderland to Cox Green and back again with me dad. We both enjoyed it so much that me dad bought the muddy fox off the shop for my 10th birthday and a Diamond Back of some sort (think it was an Explorer) for himself.
Theiving scum made off with both bikes after a couple of years.
1990 was when I got a Raleigh Lizard for my birthday after pestering my dad for that over a nasty Peugeout thing, orange and green for £30 less. Started riding to some local woods in the pissing rain & deep mud loving it. That got nicked, bought a Shogun Prairie Breaker (I think) over a Kona Fire Mountain because I preferred the paint job. Durrrhhh!! That got nicked a year later, thats when I bought my KHS Montana Comp in 1993 and started riding more seriously and never looked back. I miss those days.
87, Tufftrax, far too big for me.
First proper mountain biking - 96
Been riding towpaths and fireroads for a few years before that, but in 96 did a weekend on my Trek 4300 at Rivington with Ray Mazey.
And that was it I was hooked.
Highlight for me was the icecream run - got to the bottom, thought "that was fun", then burst in hysterical laughter. Ray came down shortly after. "You mad bastard!" he said "you just did that at least as quick as the DH guys we saw this morning" 
He also advised I get a better bike or a) I would be held back by the bike, or b) kill myself
1990. Bought a Saracen Tufftrax, which I remember subsequently upgrading with a Flexistem and alloy bars.
riding bikes on singletrack in the woods and building jumps - 1974
first actual "mountainbike" - 1991ish
2 thousand and something.....i've been very confused since the turn of the century 
It was a yellow and black Raleigh full susser that I naively thought looked the business.Only bought it to ride with my kids. Made the mistake of buying a mountain bike mag when we were on holiday...liked the look of it and hooked -up with Stoke MTB Club on my return. Didn't take long to wreck the Raleigh,so moved onto a ex-demo Stumpy FSR.
Had a few health problems and stopped riding for 3 years. Started again about this time last year. The stumpy has gone and the 575 has taken its' place. Enjoy riding now ,more than I've ever done. The Tuesday night Gang are a great bunch of people.
Started riding a mountain bike in 1991
Started mountain-biking in 2008
nice to see lots of people who were 'mountain biking' long before it was invented. Me, it was about '77. The bike I had looked just like those diamond backs people have posted pictures of, but we made them ourselves. All the kids had one and everyone rode them offroad in just the same places everyone does now.
I was lucky and grew up in New Mills so Kinder beckoned and we'd ride there in cut off jeans, offroad most of the way with a tin of coke in our back pockets.
You can imagine how cross we were when some blokes in America copied us and started making money out of it.
edit: yep, like MrCrud's picture.
When my dad died I rooted through the many thousands of pictures he had trying to find the pictures I know were taken of us riding around in flares and loud shirts but sadly they'd gone missing.
1991, possibly? 91 or 92. I had a raleigh marauder before that but kids bikes don't count, I wasn't really "mountain biking" til I got that carrera. Most of a year's birthday, christmas and paper round, it cost me. Then, stopped in about 97 or 98 and didn't ride again once for a decade.
Sometime in the late 1980s/1990s I think. I remember haring about through all the fallen trees following the great storm. My pride and joy and 1st 'proper' MTB was a bright green Saracen with the lairy block graphics. It came complete with a u-brake mounted on the underside of the rear stays. Not entirely sure of the logic as it was a PITA for getting clogged up with mud. I saved my paper-round money for ages and bought a fillet-brazed,prestige tubed Saracen frame to replace it. Still regret selling it.
There was a gang of about 10 of us -used to cycle across Ashdown Forest, various sections of the South Downs (lovely memories of cycling back from near Brighton cross-country with my father) and in an old bomb-crater off the local golf-course. It was retro-tastic - there was a selection of Kona, Marins, an early Yeti, a CromegaDX and one of my mates was considered the luckiest guy alive when Orange messed up and sent him two Clockworks instead of one...
85 or 6 i think. a mate had a muddy fox and i got a Raleigh Mustang for my birthday. rode it ragged including my first double landing short and folding the forks backwards... i was just riding along those were the days of BBs lasting a month, Aztec Brake blocks being an upgrade and foam grips landing me on my arse many times. no helmet for ages as well. jumpers for goalposts etc
Off roading pretending to be cyclocrossers from early 70's but first trips on a mountain bike were up Snowdon in I think 84, on a Dawes (Ranger?)Most annoyed when the Cranes did the Welsh 3's as we were quietly doing each one with the view. to doing the lot in a day
1995/6
1991 - British Eagle 531 framed monstrosity (sold and built up as a shop special - Warminster Cycles? Began with W anyway, from an advert in the back of MBUK).
Replaced due to a broken frame with a new 1993 Marin Palisades Trail from Cooksons! Bought some Onza bar ends and a hideous purple and yellow rain jacket, cos it matched the purple bits on the bike.
I looked like an over-ripe Ribena berry. Never bothered with a helmet though!
Hacking around Boggart Hole Clough in Blackey on a Grifter from 1977 though, wasn't quite old enough for a Tracker!.
When the Grifter eventually died I bought a copy of the first 'Richards Bicycle Boook'and a road bike. Darkside 'till mate bought a GT Tequesta in 1991, which is where I came in.......
Used to go through the local woods on my Raleigh Chipper in the 70's 
me and my mates on choppers and grifters, that's just what we did, probably like everyone here?
But, first MTB would be a borrowed mustang in 1987, it was shocking, I was into motorbikes then and wore my frank thomas enduro type jacket and cooked, didn't put me off, then got a 2nd hand MTB that had bullmoose bars and sunrace(?) shifters/gears - that was a bit useless too, but lost interest. Then in 1992 a motorbike mag had a article about mountain biking and the bikes looked completely different, so I went and got a new proper MTB, Rockhopper. Had the Axo pony SPD green purple boots too and the Onza SPD's when they first came out, nice ligt, simple but horrible to use, sold them after one ride - most of it spent on the floor still attached to my bike!
1985 was the first mountain bike. but I was riding in the mountains, brecon beacons for a few years before that.
I guess my 1st "proper" MTB was a Raleigh Lizard that I bought back in 1990 and took out on proper rides in the wilds (as well as trips to the chinese takeaway)
Before that I was busy jumping around on and breaking various inappropriate bikes on the fields next to my parents house, but not really MTB, more a poor kids effort at BMX when he didn't have a proper BMX to ride on.
In '92 we left uni, moved the Somerset and I got us £100 Halfrauds Hybrids. They were good for hacking around lanes and tracks. But then I started looking for more bridleways, hacked over The Gap in the Beacons and it inevitably fell to bits. Wendy still has hers.
In '98 I got a "proper" mountain bike - A UK built Radford. It got some upgrades like a sus-fork and this made it much better! I still only biked a few times a year - being mainly into hiking and camping.
Then 4 years ago I started biking more and more and two more bikes later, here we are.
Back in the late sixties/ early seventies me and me mates used to build "trail" bikes from whatever we could get our hands on for free (skips, dumps, older siblings, etc.).
Weekends would be spent riding the Clwds or Delamere and such.
With flat bars, chunky tyres, single speed and fixied they would be regarded as niche these days.
Hired a Kona 2 or 3 times at Mabie Forest in 2005 when I was staying at my folks looking for a job. Didn't buy my Kona until Feb 06.
mid 1980's borrowed a mates slingshot handlebar silver muddy fox, maybe a courier, he was trying to sell it to me but i thought it a fad that would never catch on at the price being asked, and stuck with my off road motorbikes .. bought a Scott Sawtooth in 1987 and continued spending far too much ever since
90, have a look at my history in pictures
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/my-mtb-history-whats-yours#post-334034
'92 i *think*. Might have been '91. I'd been doing a fair bit of acid for a few years back then so it's all a bit hazy. Which is probably why my old man gave me his discarded Al Carter Professional (some things i *do* remember heh) in the hope it might help me get my shit together. Which, of course, it did
I started when I was a young kid - but never even knew I was mountain biking cos mountains had not been invented then, I have lived all my life on the edge of Cannock Chase and we all used to ride various trails in the late 60 - early 70s, I then got interested in gals! then had a Halfords special during the early 80s, then had a another Halfords special then met into some workmates who converted me to proper bikes about 2000 so all in all 9 yrs serious but could easily state over 40yrs on and off..
I used to go off roading on my BMX for years but got my mtb in '88-89?
No cheese bits back then.
I only converted to squashy forks and gears 9 months ago. Old age, you see!
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