Raleigh 531 frame with a Jackson Pollock paint scheme and XT.
Etto helmets 🙂
Using those animal watchstraps as a trouser clip for my baggy jeans
Those red DX v brakes and levers
Azonic shorty stems
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I miss:
1) The simplicity of older bikes
2) Huge XC race fields, the big crowds and ensuing parties.
Biopace chainrings.
Nike Poobahs!
Farmer John tyres
^These
And I also really wanted a Flexstem as I couldn't afford a decent fork.
Huge XC race fields,
I really miss this, couldn't believe how small the XC scene is when I got back into riding a couple of years ago - seems like the big fields have migrated to cyclocross - get a similar feel racing that as when i used to race youth and junior back in the day.
In a similar vein to PP's boobies, I distinctly remember the 'blue' bit of Chainspotting - just the thing for a teenage boy 😳
The switch from cantis to V-brakes was crazy, I had te red DX ones to match my red dx pedals 🙂 I also remember being crazy jealous of my friends magura hydraulic rim brakes.
Also spent so much time trying to hop on and off pallets, trials style, emulating hans rey and the two martyns
How about going out for a night ride with one of those mahoosive halogen lamp, running on 2x C batteries and producing so much light, that you could see more less the whole 3 metres ahead of you? 😆
I remember buying a Yuasa lead acid battery from Maplin and wiring it to a car fog lamp from a scrappy, mounted on a bodged bracket. It was *rubbish* 🙂
Purple, lots of purple..... purple socks, purple ear warmer, purple ron hill waterproof. Oh, and before I got any padded cycling shorts I wore 'Global Hypercolor' shorts....remember them....changed colour with the heat from your body. What was I thinking?
Massive Duracell lights that took 2 D batteries each - 2 on the bars and one on the seatstay (still got them in the shed somewhere).
Smoke and Dart.
Getting my first suspension forks - RS Quadra 10.
I still have my purple and green 'porelle drys' waterproof socks - still just about keeping my feet dry too!
Bullmoose bars.
Bolting racks all over the bike, and bash bars under the BB and over the derailleur. Proper Iron ones too, possibly made in a school metalwork lesson.
Wondering why, after all this, a puny fifteen year old could get so tired after lugging a 30lb bike with another 10lb of junk bolted on it all round the forest, day after day on the long summer after O levels.
Becoming very fit very quickly, racing said monster bike in cyclocross all winter.
The stupidity of youth eh?
Alanis Mortisette.
Big adverts for Wheelbase in MBUK and getting my Mom to order pedals from them.
MTB Pro.
Dirt, still the only mountain bike video that really makes me wants to get out there and ride with my mates.
BASEjump pedals by Rob Warner.
Buying my first pair of DMR V12's and them being a revelation after the above.
Bike '95/96/97 at the NEC.
Buying heavy, high rise, narrow Profile carbon bars from there.
V-brakes completely changing the braking world. Disks were better still but v-brakes were a revelation.
Jez Avery.
The Malvern Classic.
Rox t-shirts.
Palmer on an M1 with stars and stripes livery.
Tricks and Stunts with Martyn Ashton and Martin Hawes.
Rob Warner winning the UK's first. DH world cup race (Kaprun I think).
Lusting after a Pace RC200,
Spending all my money in Halesowen Cycles.
120mm stems being the norm.
Riding the trails around Alpe D'Huez in about 1994 with a guy who I later found out was a legend of the first UK racing scene. I can't remember his name but saw him mentioned by Nick Craig in an article in MBUK 10 years ago. I remember talking to him about suspension forks and him being adamant it was only for DH.
Answer Flat Foot shoes with the original red DX SPD pedals.
Onza Ules and sticking them on with my Mom's hairspray.
Creaking, flexy square taper cranks and BB's.
Barrie Clarke and Paul Hinton.
I could go on...
Pretty much why I ended up with a Zaskar, never could ride it like Hans Rey though. Forward to 3 minutes or so for showing off new rim brake blocks then testing them on a ski slope.
Answer Flat Foot shoes with the original red DX SPD pedals.
I missed this off my list. I loved those pedals.
Answer Flat Foot shoes
The original blue and black ones, I hope?
Hmmmm...Bula hats for slalom markers? Isn't it? Wasn't it?
The original blue and black ones, I hope?
Those were the ones I had, bought on recommendation from one of the mags at the time and, shock horror, they were really good.
lunge -
For me it's the lack of complexity of it all. No bike or tyre choice, no trail centres, you just rode your bike on local trails
Many things, but that comment sums a lot of it up.
Also simple nolstalga for my youth, everything was new and exciting back then including MTB's..
Wearing a rim down enough to cracking them under braking
Yep!
Malverns
Bob's Bash
Cleeve Hill
Bullet Bros chain tensioner
Zip-tieing a noose around my fork steerer and front straddle wire as I was paranoid of a front tyre/straddle cable interface . . . just me? 😳
Scott Unishocks . . . boing!!
Blue and pink Sidis
Local Motion Dominators
Fairly extensive list, just to add;
Marzocchi DH3
Cornwall Mountain Bike Club events in farmers fields.
Jumps amongst mine waste.
Ballistic Suspension.
Xxyzyx forks (or whatever it was) with stancions like beer cans.
Mountain Cycle
Amp Research
I wanted a Rockhopper but couldn't afford it then the Muddy Fox Courier came out .. on returning from a summer in Peru in 1987 I bought one and loved it. until I saw a Fisher Hookooekoo. That was brilliant. Took it to Ladakh for the best trip ever.
Don't know why I opened this thread. Very disappointing. Nostalgia - not as good as it used to be...
IGMC.
Klein paint jobs
RST Mozo pro and RS Indy forks (both of which were too expensive for me)
AVID Arch rival brakes
wanting a gold Kona Pohoehoe so bad I contemplated a loan for one, then bottled it.
I still have an old killi flyer with rst mozo pro w forks they cost a fortune new and now they seem rubbish if still light.
Some things I do miss like shimano threaded headsets that just worked a never came loose
And maybe I should not admit to this but still build most of my own wheels with purple nipplles as a little reminder of lazy summer days racing my mates in the SAMS xc series.
I'd forgotten about chain spotting now off to find a download
Mavic rims (231?) with super narrow brake track - My mrs was constantly putting flat spots in them, so every weekend seemed to consist of trying to stop the brake pads rubbing through the tyre.
Conti Cross Country 1.5 tyres if it was a fast course.
Original Judy XCs. Then Pace MXCD the next year.
Sachs Quartz groupset.
Many hours of swearing trying to fit a "Power Spring" to a Shimano rear mech.
World Championships where we sent a full team even if they weren't likely to make the podium.
World Championships with 175 riders in the women's race (see above).
Jez Avery.
I remember a downhill at Eston where he started 1 minute after my wife. On the start line she got a slightly menacing "Are you next? Because I'M behind you..." She never saw him on the course, and in the results he was a whole second faster 🙂
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Meeting Tinker Jaurez at Newnham World Cup
Leith Hill, Peaslake, Wendover etc in the 90's early noughties....
Sigh....
Mavic 217s in sunset
purple anodised shite
acor skeewers
Shite cantis
awsome V brakes (I prefer wheeling my 1998 saracen killi as my awesome parallel push xt Vs and my speed dials (2.0 dontcha know) give better modulation than my discs
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its been well ridden and is a bit of a bitsa some stuff came off my 1995 taho but I love it, even if it tried to kill me,
still ride it occcasionaly should take it to a MNPR
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oh and Dirt on VHS, the number of times me n my mates watched that end sequence whilst giggling hysterically must be in the 000s
I miss having the time to ride whenever I wanted.
I miss the riding buddies I had in Devon , Surrey and on the South Coast.
I miss deciding with which bunch to ride.
Now riding is mainly a solo project tagged onto commutes or quick blasts while dinner is in the oven.
However, it's still riding a bike and it's still fun.
I miss my old proflex 995 which I bought after a long drive to Caversham. I think the shop was called Mountain High? It cost me a fortune back then and a week later I went back for the girvin forks. All because I saw it on the cover of a mountain bike mag and fell in love with it. I sold it around 2005 on ebay to an old guy who wanted a pootle around bike for £150 and he loved it. It was still pretty much immaculate
I missed out the endless hours fitting over priced srp bolts in my first post oh and maybe lusting after a disc drive wheel
Kona paint jobs. My burnt orange coloured koa had an absolutely bomb proof coating, whereas my gt karakorum paint peeled off when the dog licked it. Both were amazing bikes at the time though, especially after riding a raleigh ascender for a year.
1995\98 lordswood two or three times a week
1999 Schwinn Homegrown USA with Judy sl's XT/xtr groupset and a rockshox semi hydraulic disc up front.
Riding in the South Downs virtually every week
Michelin green wild grippers (the file tread ones) about as grippy as diesel coated ice. Rolled quick though.
Michelin green wild grippers (the file tread ones) about as grippy as diesel coated ice. Rolled quick though.
The semi-slick skinwall? Best looking tyre ever made.
However, even the slightest bit of moisture and you'd crash!
The semi-slick skinwall?
The very same, made Ritchey alpha and omega bites appear grippy.
Konas with flame paint jobs - circa 97-98 - I themed my GCSE D&T project round those paint schemes.
Blue ano - as usual I had to be different and spent obscene amount of money on blue ano bits.
Team MBUK Santa Cruz Heckler - the first bike I really really lusted after.
Onza porcupines. I always wanted one and never got it. Always mind the pic in Mbuk or such when someone had skidded a white porcupine and "left" a white skidmark
When you look back bike tech has come a long way.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be...
Pretty much all of the above.
Was wearing my Rox tee shirt this morning 😆
It's seen many better days but won't get thrown away until it can stay on my shoulders no longer.
Have a few of the things mentioned in the garage too.
Smoke + Dart tyres, old GT frame, Mozo pro forks, a multitute of wheels, gears and brakes.
When Bkb was proper narrow single-track and sometimes still called golden birdies
That first go on your mate's full suss/your own bike that's had your first ever bouncy forks on
Going from cantis to v-brakes
When crc was a double paged spread in the back of mbr
