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Bought a Kona Explosif frame in '97 that cost £500 and the Pace forks that I got at the same time were £400.
My Kona Fire Mountain was £450 in 1992. It was rubbish by today's standards. It had a a cromo main triangle and HTS stays IIRC. Rigid and cantis, of course, and weighed 28lbs or so. But the hubs were poorly sealed C&C, the headset was notchy after a few rides, the rear mech (STX) was floppy as hell after a year or so (I only had it two years) and the freehub packed up twice.
I think my first Kids MTB was an MBK (motobecane?), then a 24" diamondback, then things went backwards and I had my dads Raleigh Maveric followed by a saracen BSO in about 2001 which still cost £200 and I really did ride it into the ground!
Then I discovered actual mountain biking with stuff that actually worked!
My Orange P7 in 1996 with LX, Cantis and rigid fork was £800
I bought a Team Marin rigid in March 1994. It was £1095. I vividly recall riding to work on it one day when a colleague, stood puffing on one of her 20 a day, said
'How much was that then, looks expensive.'
'£1100'
'Bloody hell, that's a lot'
'It is, how many fags a day do you smoke Gill ?'
'20'
'Well, in 12 months, I'll still have my bike and still be pretty fit, you'll have spunked £1000 on fags and all you'll have is smelly hair and clothes and black lungs'
Lol
I spent all of first freelance payment on a KHS Montana with full XT group set for £850 from Bigfoot bikes in Gloucester at the very start of the 90s. Great bike, lasted ages, eventually snapped the frame. A big step up from the Raleighs I was hooning around on before.
GT Arrowhead was £300 in 1997 IIRC. Specialized Rockhopper, the mid-market benchmark for hardtails was about £600 IIRC; and the Stumpjumper, in M2 and then M4 flavour (never found out what happened to the M3) was a scarcely believable £1000. Crazy money - showed that the whole MTB market had gone mad!
MY Peugeot Barracuda cost £300, think that was 1990/91. Pretty sure it had Deore Lx rapidfire gears. Remember wanting an Alpinestars Cro-mega but my mum didn't have enough cash for those lovely elevated stays. I still bring it up over Christmas lunch as an example of neglect.
Halfords has similarly capable looking rigid bikes with V brakes from less than £200, if you were looking for mid range deore level bikes, reckon you'd find something for £300-350, so about 50% of the cost of my Peugeot when inflation adjusted. And for not much more you could have hydro discs and working suspension.
I saw a cromo alpinestar on ebay the other day.love the look of them and I think they are very good.the alloy versions all snapped at the chain stay.
My first bike a Ridgeback 602x was 250 quid back in 1988 (was reduced being the 87 model from 300)
Bought a Proflex Beast 96 model for 1649 with xt v brakes rather than magura hs11's
Then a Giant Mcm990 1997 reduced from 3000 to 1700 full xt,carbon full sus with Judy sl and Super Deluxe Shock.
@supernova those khs montanas where a lovely bike, mate had one. knacked it when he tried to drill a snapped seat post out of it 🙁
I remember my 1990 Marin Muirwoods with the Zolatone paint and bright green forks/stem/bars and Shimano 200GS groupset was £320... I remember thinking how low the granny gear was, a 28T chainring and a largest 28T cog on the back giving a 1:1 ratio... How times have changed!
My 1995 Marin Eldridge Grade was £720 from memory, and with its 8spd Shimano LX groupset and White Industries (OEM cheapo made by Sugino I think) cranks etc. and the (at the time) faintly ridiculous 22/28 granny gear! I ended up upgrading that bike quite heavily, got a Manitou Magnum suspension fork for it (£280 iirc) as I couldn't stretch to the Manitou 4. Put some Club Roost riser bars on it too, with a brace, an enormous 620mm wide (up from 560mm flats with bar ends on!), Flite Ti saddle, softer brake blocks, some expensive folding Conti tyres etc...
Then, perhaps stupidly, I fell for the lure of full suspension, a mate having had both a Proflex and a Cannondale Super V already at the time. I was an impressionable youth and had saved up my entire wages from working all summer, and just before I went back for my A Levels I took my Eldridge Grade along with me to PX against an Orange X1 Pro, complete with Shimano XT Groupset (Gripshift SRT800 shifters aside) and a Pace MXD suspension fork with a whopping 75mm of travel! I think it was £1800 cash price with those upgrades at the time... I did ride that bike pretty much everywhere though to be fair!
I paid £500 for my 92 Eldridge Grade (3x7 XT drivetrain and shirts, DX brakes and hubs) in an end of season sale. My 99 Mount Vision (full 3x9 XT, Manitou SX Ti fork) was £1999 - a 40th birthday present.
I got a KHS Montana Comp when the bike shop I worked in as a Saturday lad started selling them. Lovely things but my god they were squirrely. If you stomped down on the pedals you could get the frame to flex enough to drop the chain into the small ring, bear in mind I was about 8st dripping wet in 1994.
As for pricing I was mostly paid in parts, the Manitou's on my bike worked out at about three months worth of Saturdays. If I needed cash it was a tenner out of the till at the end of the day.
I had a 2000 Kona cindercone as my first mountain bike after I go in to buy my brother (he had a 1995/6 diamondbacks WCF), I paid £700 for it which because it was full retail they chucked in a set of rob warrer pedals in as well.
https://www.bicyclebluebook.com/value-guide/product/46277/
Still have it in the family, dads pub bike
I think my Marin Bear Valley SE (Rigid forks, Cromo, STX RC, V Brakes) Was about £640 in 1998. Took me a year to save up for that.
Bossnut of it's day was the B-17, £999 IIRC - 6" front and Rear (Hi5s on the front) but V Brakes I think.
Seems to remember the Mount Vision was about £1600 or so for the entry level one, Pro was quite a bit more, possibly 2kish?
I think my Hope C2s were about £150/end, the Bulb Hubs were similar prices to Pro4s nowadays.
Chain reaction were getting going that time, Big ads in a lot of the papers and the stuff was definitely cheaper than my LBS (Even though I worked there - the staff discount was NOT generous...)
My Kona Cindercone in 1989 was £349
I remember my 1990 Marin Muirwoods with the Zolatone paint and bright green forks/stem/bars and Shimano 200GS groupset was £320…
That was a 1991. The 90 was full neon yellow, no Zolatone, unlike the rest of the range.
I'm a nerd.
Marin Nail Trail 1993, £900 (2020 = £1600)
Marin Nail Trail 7 2017, £1600
(Although I paid £950)
That's not a 93 Nail Trail, it's a 1994 or 5.
Now I'm really nerding myself out.
😆
I think I demo-ed that model Nail Trail.
Very fast and light but I hated the stiffness and got a Team Marin instead.
We had many happy years together.
In 1997, I bought a Specialized Rockhopper hardtail with Rockshox fork and A1 frame for £750
My 753 framed Raleigh Team Panasonic cost £1500 in 1985 (I didn't buy one back then)
Thanks everyone.only thought I would get a few replies
That was a 1991. The 90 was full neon yellow, no Zolatone, unlike the rest of the range.
I’m a nerd.
You are probably right actually... Got it in July 1990, so it's certainly possible it was a 91 model bike when they had just come out.
That’s not a 93 Nail Trail, it’s a 1994 or 5.
Now I’m really nerding myself out.
That's a 1994 for sure... The 95 Nail Trail didn't have any purple on it, it was all plain silver polished alloy. 👍🏻
and the Stumpjumper, in M2 and then M4 flavour (never found out what happened to the M3) was a scarcely believable £1000.
Yep, I got a Stumpjumper, after my Rockhopper got knicked. House insurance paid the £750 in full, and the lock came with $250 insurance, which I also claimed.
Strangely, I remember the Stumpy having a rigid fork, but a quick search says no
My Orange C16 with rigid forms and STX RC groupset cost me £600 in 1995 from wild side cycles in Tunbridge Wells.
In 1993 my Univega Alpina with Acera gears was £360 new.
Marin were so big in the early/mid 90s. I bought a Palisades Trail in 92, I can still remember the excitement. And I was 29.
Paid £375 in 1987 for my Marin Bear Valley. Had to borrow £50 from my boy friend at the time or get the lower speced model. 33 years and 2 kids later and we are still hitting the trails together. Never did get round to paying it back 😉
iirc I paid something like £400/£500 for my first mtb in the early nineties, a Trek 850. God I loved that bike, fully ridged, canti rim brakes, single walled rims (that were quickly replace after a few dings) with Paneracer smoke/dart 1.95s, plastic toe clips, 3x9 alivio.
25 years on I guess this is about £900 in modern money, which is about what my old cube acid cost a couple of years ago which got me back into biking, recon fork, disc brakes, 3x10 deore / XT,
so I guess allowing for inflation and bike development an entry level type bike then was about the same as an entry level bike now?
Think I paid £600 for my Orange C16-R in 1996. Had 21 speed STX-RC, canti brakes. Loved it.
1990 Marin Palisades Trail here. £300 ish from Walton Street Cycles in Oxford.
Best paint job ever.
Great thread, took me back to my first decent mountain bike.
1995 Marin Indian Fire Trail (rigid) - £1050. I've still got the receipt, catalogue and official price list... 🙂 In fact, I've still got the bars knocking about in the garage somewhere.
Amazing thread. Bringing back great memories and lots of little details about things I’ve bought.
I remember saving hard and selling stuff to get a Fisher (my dream bike, pre Trek buyout etc). I could ‘only’ afford the entry level Celerity at £440. Although the frame and fork were ripe for upgrades. I bought it from a shop called Pyscho (or similar) and the salesman was called Scott and threw in a Scott branded multi tool. That was carried around in a bright orange seat pack I’d picked up from Schmoos cycles in Swansea while on a family holiday.
That Fisher went through most of the early 90s trends like bar ends (original wedge style Onza then the alu L bend ones), the original GripShift after an article in MBUK on Greg H-Balls bike.
I still have it set up as a SS but it is a tad too small for me now.
I did also buy a Marin Bobcat Trail in 1993 (iirc)for £355 with a free D Lock! I stuck slicks and a rack for commuting and off-road gentle touring (see Bikepacking and Gravel for the modern take 😂)
I lent that bike to a friend years later after his car was stolen and he still has it in his family.
My rose tinted Oakleys probably contributed to me now enjoying a similar feel just with drops and discs 😎
I think they were similar to a point. You can probably get something perfectly off-roadable for less nowadays, accounting for inflation (although it might be quite far away from the top end and sneered at). I don't think the top end has gone up much either, if you account for inflation.
There was the odd discount available even on the current model year's bikes in the LBS, just couldn't advertise it to keep the suppliers happy. Typically threw in accessories or credit instead to stay on the right side of that line.
I remember the Trek carbon HT was £3500, with the top end build. For a hardtail, with V-brakes... Still lusted after it at the time.
£1k upwards got you a really decent bike, maybe £1.5k retail for a full sus (you could get cheaper but it might have compromises - I got a full sus in 2001 for £1k, from the previous model year, it had v brakes but was "disc brake ready" lol)
Things have really come on, but not gone up in price compared with inflation. The problem is they've increased in steps according to world events/exchange rates, rather than smoothly, so whenever there's a big step up you notice it, but you don't notice the prices slowly waning the rest of the time.
I brought a Rock Shox Mag21 from Shorter Rochfords for £300 or £350, I can't quite remember, they also had to order in a 1.25" ahead crown/steerer to get them fitted. Came from the factory in white which was unusual. I later added the long travel kit, bringing them up to a whopping 60mm.
My first ever MTB was a Raleigh Mirage, early-mid 90s, was about £400 from memory. Very special looking purple bike that
After reading this thread I had a quick look in my work toolbox (where the wife won't see) and found a receipt for my old orange p7 with stx RC. 30th September 94. Leisure lakes windsurfing and mountain bike shop. £769.95. That was a replacement for a stolen Marin bear valley se.
Sneaky. That was alot of money.
500 quid for a Rockhopper Comp in 1990. And, I think, 250 for some RockShox Quadras a few years later which had elastomers rather than your fancy pants air.
Surely the only bikes really worth getting excited about in the 90s were priced $CALL in the ads in Mountain Bike Action😎
I’ve got a garage full of stuff from that era. There’s a Merlin titanium from 1991, a Rockhopper Comp from the same era, and a Cannondale M400 (I think - it’s my wife’s old bike) from when they were built in the US.
They’re all terrible to ride on anything remotely technical.
I’ve even got some original Maguras and a very rare Campagnolo MTB groupset, which never shifted anywhere near as well as Shimano, but looked great.
Bikes are much better now.
JP
I just use mine an easy xc and gravel bike stuff. It's quite slack and is great to ride.makes me smile.even has quite a small original stem.the frame makes it very comfy too.it will run decent sized tyres too