If comparison is the thief of joy, then regret is the darkside of nostalgia.
Usually I’m not one for rose-tinted spcatacles when it comes to cycling. Cycling was not better in the olde dayes. Or if it was, it wasn’t to do with the bike you were on. It was probably to do with everything else happening in your life at the time. Such as being younger. And having fewer responsibilities. And more disposable income (or income you could pretend was disposable at least).
Anyway. My no-nostalgia stance changed last week when I came across an old photo of a bike I used to have. Yes, the Cannondale pictured above, as featured in last week’s Fresh Goods Friday. Do I wish I still had this bike? Are there any other bikes that I regret getting rid of? What about bikes I regret ever buying? Well, let’s just say, I’ve had quite a few bikes in my time…
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I do miss certain bikes such as my old SX Trail, but as you point out, it’s probably more to do with the time of my life when I had it. I don’t really regret selling any bikes though as I’ve always replaced them with something better.
I should have never bought a Genesis CdF. Absolutely hated it. Harsh, horrible ride.
My old Mountain Goat Whiskey town, a beautiful tange prestige wonder with a fantastic paint job. And one that got taken from me my Salsa a la carte with jelly bean paint job, utterly gutted when it got stolen.Â
I miss the ride quality of my old Scandvik Hummer, but I don’t miss the chain suck, I regret selling my Airdrop Edit, it was genuinely one the best bikes I’ve owned, but it was right on the cusp of internal droppers being a thing, and while I should’ve just drilled it, I swapped it for a shiny new thing, as you do.Â
My regret would be selling my Cannondale Rush, the photo above reminded me of it as same paint job. Loved it, many miles covered and had some incredible upgrades. As you do when you sell a bike, tell any buyer of the amazing spec, it has been looked after, cherished, polished, greased, lubed, lefty serviced etc but the return comment was, ‘just like the look of the lefty type fork’!! Felt quite sad my cherished Rush had been brought by a farmer who liked nothing more than the look of the fork. Replaced with an Orange Five
As to regret… why did I think a DMR Trail Star would be a good idea. Dreams of going to the local bike park, whips and jumps etc!!! Think had it about 2 months at the very most!
I shouldn’t have bought my Orange E6 but it did get me back into biking. The On-One 456 that replaced it was a much better bike for the riding I enjoyed and continue to enjoy. I don’t tend to sell bikes as such but I regret selling a set of black box rebas for £80 to a mate who wrecked them in no time. I still have the Scandal frame and some nice wheels but no forks.
The one I couldn’t get on with was early 90s Marin Team Titanium just felt dead compared to all the light steel bikes I’d been riding up to that point.
The GT iT-1 I sold for a grand that is now worth many grands.
I sold a DN6 Inbred to “upgrade" to an 853 Cotic Soul. The Cotic Soul was NOT the bike for me – it was very much a “ride the fork" aggresive race bike. The Inbred was very much a “hang on for grim death and hope to God you’re still alive at the bottom" bike, which is MUCH closer to my riding style
The end result was good though in that I sold the Soul and bought an 853 inbred which I loved till it died then Brant sold me a half-price Blue Pig in a masterstroke of guerilla marketing.
Bikes I should never have sold:
– Tomac 204 Magnum (would look lovely hanging on my wall as it was a work of art)
– Pashley 26MHZ (same as above but rode like crap. As flexy as a sponge).
– Curtis S1 (one of the cheapo CRC ones they had that time and was everything a top end steel hardtail should have been)
– Brooklyn Machine Works Park Bike (bought stupidly cheap, sold slightly for more but still stupidly, stupidly cheap)
Bikes I should never have bought:
– Santa Cruz Heckler mk2 off Hora from these parts. Was a POS. Felt like a Chameleon that had snapped in the middle.
– loads of random cheap stuff to use as 3rd/4th choice bikes that were usually sold before being ridden/built
I had a DN6 Inbred SS at the same time as a mk2 Soul. Preferred the ride of the Inbred – what a great bike. The Soul did teach me one thing though – that full sus is far better than hardtails.
Bad bikes I shouldn’t have bought:
Genesis Vagabond, others love them, to me it was just heavy and harsh. It made both road and off-road sections a slog rather than being the best of both worlds.
Bikes I shouldn’t have sold:
Charge Cooker SS, stupidly sold it during lockdown for a bargain £150, I’ve no idea why I sold it so cheap other than I’d bought it for a similar bargain price. Even now the market value is more like £250-£350. And it was easily as good as my old singular swift, and significantly better than the El-Mariachi (too stiff). Would absolutely buy another one as a XC/gravel-ish bike.
50/50
An old Claud Butler Dalesman I bought off the classifieds here and then did a bit of a restomod job on it with new wheels and groupset. At the time though it didn’t completely suit my riding but now it probably would.
This.Â
Bloody lovely.Â
I’ve bought/sold a lot of bikes over the years. I want to say “no regrets" in a flippant never-look-back way, but I’d be lying.Â
Bike I should never have sold:
Mk1 Cotic Soul: bought frame new to replace a Kona Explosif (see below…). Bloody loved that. Sold it as I also had a Dialled Bikes Love/Hate at the same time and was favouring the SS/hub-gear setup I flipped that between.
and more recently;
Cotic BFe Max: an unplanned purchase after a frame appeared in the classifieds close to me. Collected it that afternoon. Best-riding hardtail I’ve owned. Replaced an aluminium Norco Torrent which was ‘adequate’ but the BFe reminded me how good a hardtail could be. Regret selling it now but at the time (and now too) I didn’t (don’t) have space or time to ride it. My current Cascade with 29×2.2s kind of forced it out.
And, bikes I regret buying:
Kona Explosif 2004: an utter disappointment. As kids I envied my best mate’s ’93 Kilauea while all I could afford was a Trek 930 (still steel though!). I bought the Kona after sorting myself with my first ‘proper’ FSer as an adult MTBer the year before. It just felt dead and nothing like I expected. Replaced with a mk1 Soul (see above) which was everything the Kona should’ve been.
Spesh Allez: it was a road bike. I tried, I really really tried, but I f**king hated riding on the road! Replaced with an early Genesis Vapour with CX tyres which opened up so many opportunities.
I still have a Prophet in the shed, not an MX but I put a longer 150mm fork on it. Got it in 2009 brand new, it was the first decent FS bike I bought. Used it for everything, XC rides and occasional races, Enduro racing, commuting, STW Weekenders (remember them?), attempted the Megaavalanche (broke myself in practice) and even rode the Fort William DH track on it. Amazing bike at the time but not sure how it would compare to a modern bike! I replaced it with a Specialized Pitch but kept the Cannondale just in case I didn’t get in with the Spesh! I really liked the Spesh but never got around to selling the Prophet.
I had a prophet Mx – agreed it was a brilliant bike. Still probably the best climbing FS I’ve owned, as bikes since have been built at the burlier end of the spectrum. Think I did the right thing selling it when I did, though. It was of it’s time (well….it was ahead of it’s time at the time but that time has still now passed!)
I feel like an updated version would still be very relevant? Mullet wheels to maintain the rear travel, more modern and longer shock. The key thing I think would be to keep the simple round tubes and making it as cheap as possible. Keep the ethos as a simple bike done well rather than exotic bike done cheap.  Like a Starling, but in aluminum and cheap.Â
I’d personally not buy it as I already have a 140-150mm travel bike, but If I was looking for it’s replacement (or rewind a few years to when I bought it) and that’s the sort of thing that would have appealed.
I’d miss those two as well, both stunners!
Don’t think I regret selling any modern bike as the one that replaced them has always been better or I’ve sold a bike I don’t use? I regretted selling my original 1989 Orange Clockwork in the mid 2000’s which then led me to Retrobike and since then I’ve had hundreds of old bikes (not so much these days though)! The only one I wish I’d kept was an immaculate 1993 Orange Vitamin T that I built up with M900 XTR. Sold to fund a modern bike from memory?
Bikes I regretted buying? Rigid On One Whippet as I already had a gravel bike so didn’t need it. Terrible finishing kit and Sram SX cheese gears didn’t help. Other than that my 1999 GT XCR4000 I-drive thing sticks out in the memory for being awful. Kept it virtually unused for 5 years before selling it to a mate and buying a hard tail which was ace and got me back in to MTB.
never regretted selling a bike as it usually ends up with something i wanted as a replacement.
2 that i regret buying, easy this.
Jones plus……………Â dont believe the hype.
Salsa fargo Ti……….. expensive foray proving the grass is not always greener.
1996 rigid Specialized Rockhopper.
Paid £440 for it new. Sold to to my BiL a couple of years later for £50 and he let it rot.
Like this.
Mrs a11y’s first FSer was identical – she had that for years. Used for everything from XC rides, Alps trips to Ft William DH track. Brilliant bike.
Cannondale kind of have – the Habit LT. My mini a11ys have the regular 140/130 non-LT versions, the LT has (I think) different linkage and shock and bumps travel up to 150/140. Nice, no nonsense frame, decent geometry and sensible spec. There’s also a carbon version but the alloy’s closer in approach to the original Prophet. Not mullet though.
I’m not a serial bike swapper and don’t regret getting rid of the ones I have moved on (which only amounts to three or four MTB’s in 35 odd years).
Probably the most unsuitable one I’ve bought is ironically the one I’ve had the longest – I lusted after my Kona Lava Dome, but in reality it was a bit of a pig to ride as stock – certainly with my bodily proportions anyway
Really? I still regret getting rid of mine, Had it for Years, it was set up SS with BMX cranks, 24″ wheels and DJ2 forks (IIRC), utterly bombproof, Got hacked about on local trails and jumps I even attempted a couple of uplift days on it for fun, hardly a refined machine, but a reliable bike and equal to the abuse it got, not sure I’d have liked it with proper sized wheels and gears as much TBF.I’m going to pick an odd one to regret buying: Stump Jumper Evo 29, not because it was a bad bike, or even because it was the old version with somewhat dated geometry, but it was simply more bike than I really needed at the time. It was a cheap purchase just pre-covid, I just thought I’d have a bouncy trail bike (when I’d not had one for a while), and the kids were getting older and thus I thought I’d have more time to ride MTBs (I was mistaken of course)… I Finally got rid of it last year after acknowledging it was very underutilized, funnily enough to go back to a HT which I enjoy riding far more and probably pull out to ride more frequently as a result.Â
Yep, borrowed a mate’s as I was intending to buy one like you, and so glad I didn’t. Just the most un-likable bike I’ve ridden, I don’t think to this day I’ve ever ridden anything worse.Â
Bought and sold way too many to catalogue! If I had to choose one tho:
Sold: DMR Switchback from 2005. First proper “hardcore" hardtail. Learned loads on that bike. Should have kept it (also had a Trailstar for years, used at Chicksands then for messing about in the woods, fab little thing)
Bought: Ellsworth ISIS. Good lord that was a piece of junk. Kept it for a while thinking maybe it was me (as per normal) that was the problem. But no in this specific case it was that dogs breakfast of a bike with rubbish geometry and a truly hateful suspension platform.Â
On that note, this thread can’t really even be classed as “Open" until @northwind posts his Ellsworth 🙂Â
Bikes I should not have bought.
Santa Cruz Heckler Mk 1. The dropouts being 8mm wider than my rear hub should have been an early clue. The suspension felt choppy with the back end and the front end feeling like a cut and shut. I broke the frame just outside the warranty period. I was not sorry to see it go.
Cove Hummer. The hype was it was an amazing and for the time aggressive hard tail. It really wasn’t. Broke that too. Litespeed made them and suggested they just cut behind the crack on the down tube and reweld with a shorter front end…..I politely declined until they sent me a new frame which I promptly sold.
Cannondale Caad cross bike – too small, too stuff, to uncomfortable. I sold it to @spin for whom it was a much better fit.
Turner 5 Spot v 2. I broke my Horst Link one so replaced it with the DW version. Nowhere near as nice a bike to ride although the Sultan that eventually replaced it was miles better. Think I just got a Friday five to five frame.
Bikes I am glad I never bought
On One 456 Ti. What a piece of junk. My friend Luke had one which lasted a couple of days in Verbier before the disc side drop out completely separated from the chain and seat stays. It was a real fight for him to get it warrantied.
Pretty much anything made of Ti. It has become a running joke that when I visit a certain bike shop in the Lakes, if they have a Ti bike in for repair, I’ll sniff out the crack in the frame.
Cheers
Sanny