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10 Years ago I was riding this bad boy!!
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Only had 2 full sussers, the Orange Five and a Commencal Meta AM. Now riding a Cotic Solaris mk2 but gonna be getting a new FS sometime soon/when stock allows....
10yrs ago I was on a singular hummingbird, which I do regret selling. But 29rs were just becoming a (bigger) thing I jumped from the 26 ship. Prob should have bought a swift, but ended up going canyon.
Now days I'm mainly back on 26... with a Smokestone Bow ti. Although I do still run 29s every now and again on it.
I think it was a Specialized Pitch that kept repeatedly trying to kill components, then it tried to kill me. Great bike, but I ended up hateing it.
Went back to basics with a singular swift after that which was lovely.
10 years ago I was riding...
Almost 10 years to the day, my 2010 Lapierre Spicy at Fort William. Was up for the weekend as volunteer bike patrol/medic for the DH tracks but wind stopped play early on the Saturday. Instead we played around on the practice stuff behind the gondola shed, pushed up to ride half the DH track etc. Amazed that bike stood up to this untalented idiot hitting every bump/hole on (and sometimes off...) the DH tracks run after run for a couple of years:
Then the following weekend, my Gary Fisher Rig 29er SS at SSWC 2011 in Ballyhoura, Ireland. Great memories of that one - the bike and the weekend. My first 29er and I've been on them ever since.
Both bikes long gone. Currently riding my Geometron and have a pile of bits awaiting me deciding on a new short-travel 29er frame:
10 years ago I was riding a jones space frame singlespeed, many other bike have come and gone, but this is still my fave bike ever and gets used at least once a week.
My first bling bike! Finally had a job and a salary after 7 years as student; and having snapped my ACL (didn’t know this until 7 years later!), I was on the hunt for something once I was back up and running (I do have a habit of buying bikes after major injury/illness whilst bored). Nicolai UK had a few frames in stock, without colour choice etc which I totally fell for the discount. I liked it and I was so proud of having something really decent. Reality was it was heavy, and the geometry was not at all confidence inspiring (and look at the height of that BB!)! I’ve still got the same wheelset (!) on my Banshee Spitfire v2 - a whole different and more rideable beast (not that I’ve ridden it for over a year, preferring my Niner Gravel and Stanton Sherpa).
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10 years ago I was riding this Scott which I bought second hand. Looked crap but was light and fast. Shortly after it got relegated to a winter bike as I bought a new Zesty.
Nice to see the thread still going, and equally surprising how far the bikes have come over that 10 year period.
That's not to say new is better as clearly there are a lot of older 26" bikes under riders that are far more capable than me (for example) on a newer LLS or whatever bike from the last couple of years.
Having said that, some of the short and steep bikes look decidedly unfit for purpose when you think about how much lateral movement there is on a newer bike when riding over technical terrain now.
What is comfortable to ride over now would probably have the same rider on the floor on some of the older bikes.
Maybe I'd best leave my old 26" bike in bits 😀
2011 just moved to Herefordshire so decided I needed one of those new fangled All Mountain Bikes. Enter the Pace 405. HA looks so steep now!
Then I bought a Orange ST4 which I loved. Until it ate itself in the Pyrenees. Orange sent me the new model but I never liked it as much.
Since then, well I've had a lot. My longest serving is my RipMo v1 and my latest is the Revel Rascal. Almost every bike in between has been better than the last. Except maybe the fat bike 😉
A Kona One20 Scandium which was a touch too small for me and very very twitchy.
I was mainly riding with the Boggies on a Saturday - I think this was Worsthorne way
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Pic courtesy of SFB
I'm going to cheat a bit as I'm intrigued and slightly amazed just how relatively recently it is that bikes have changed. Must only be the last 5 years really.
Here is the first build of the best frame I've sold.
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That was 1999 and not really much different to a further 10 years. Rear disk tabs being the obvious one missing on the Zaskar but geometry didn't change too much.
I rebuilt it in 2009 to the below, including an A2Z rear disk bracket thing. A bit of a bodge but it worked and the bike as was flew round the original Cannock Chase trails, where that pic was taken.
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Loved the rear stickers, probably very un-pc now.
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Then its final build in 2012 before the foolish sale
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Had loads of other bikes in between but mostly with the same bits swapped over. Most memorable were a Carbon 456, Ragley Piglet (for the wrong reasons - it was a tank), few road bikes (all too big for me, strange).
The one mainstay was the SC Superlight. Bought the first frame in 2000, 6 months after building the Zaskar and after only one ride on my mates Heckler (so much faster than the Zaskar). Only replaced the frame in 2007 (when it developed a crack) with the one in my original pic, and that has been with me ever since. Stripped it down in 2016 I believe to replace it with an Ibis Mojo SLR, bought second hand here and that was when the real change in bikes started as that was replaced by a NS Snabb 130 plus 1 in 2017.
The NS was supposed to be just a play thing as it was bought half price in CRCs sale. Turned out it rode so much better than the Mojo, despite being 6lb heavier as a full build, and was the first time I went onto a 29" wheel.
Happy to post pics of bikes up if anybody is interested 🙂
Took me a while to find the images. These are from 2010, when I was spannering in my LBS and riding shit loads.
3rd iteration of my favouritest bike ever a HL Turner 5spot. Owned from 2005 untill 2012. I had stripped the aftermarket paint I had previously put on it, and turned it into a coil monstered 1x9. Its was a spectacular rock crawler and descender for the time.
And my penultimate singlespeed - a Ti 456, which got slammed everywhere. The original Stans Crest rims lasted about 2 weeks before needing truing, and that 120mm reba was constantly bouncing off the stops. Could have done with a bigger fork tbh, but cash was tight. Never the less I enjoyed this bike immensely.
Almost my last 26ers, to be followed by a gen1 solaris Max singlespeed in 2011 and a geared Turner DW 5spot that I hated in 2012.
Actually, I think the Reba was 100mm!
Real shame there isn't a like option for threads like this.
Forgot I had a 456 EVO II in raw at some point. That was a cool looking bike and rode very well. Don't seem to have any pictures of it though.