Three bikes designed in the UK for completely different purposes - Pace, Orange and Planet X offer up their wares.
I've not done the maths, but I'd wager that the 'don't ask' price for the Pace build would seem positively reasonable today.
The pace mainlines mint sauce
The sub was a classic
The compo gave me a bad back just from looking
What's with the white components? What were we thinking?
^^^ didn't mean to put 'Jeez' at the start of that reply 🤣
I was typing a completely different context reply without the quote, changed my post and somehow left that in
Always lusted after one of those Pace frames.
I’ve never been a fan of Orange fs bikes imo always looked like they were welded by a blind monkey. Though I did love my Orange Clockwork back in the day.
I think the only ever white component I had (still have) was a set of X Fusion Vengeance forks. They were bloody good too
I had a bike that I festooned with white components (the biggest being the white Lyriks on the front).
I realised why this isn't a good choice for mountain bikes the first time it rained. On most bikes a muddy bike looks like a bike that's been ridden through mud. On a white bike a muddy bike looks like a bike that's been ridden by someone with diarrhea.
Would still love a Pace to hang on the wall and look at. Riding any of them - no thanks. The fact the review mentions Tioga Factory XC tyres are ok shows how far we've come...
I've got some white mavic 319 rims on my pump track bike.
Not my first choice but they were bought off for a bike my kids haven't quite grown into yet and seemed to goOd to sit doing nothing in the loft 
It’s mad seeing the photos of those bikes being ridden - the geometry and full height saddles force such weird body position! Progress actually is progress!
seemed to goOd to sit doing nothing in the loft
So you thought you could Pringle them on the pump track first 😂, which would have been the outcome if I did that except for pump track substitute small kerb.
I rode some Mavic v brake rims down the fort William worked cup.track. F519 I think.
Disappointingly I won't be getting enough air to Pringle anything 😃
The bike did feel amazingly fast nimble and agile compared to the 29er i rode there the previous day. The 29er did have 15kg of laughing two year old on the back which might have had something to do with it
"The top tube is drilled for internally routing disk brake hydraulic lines as the RC300 is disk brake only"
Hmm.. so 2001 and we still have that nonsense. Didn't we work out back then that internally routed brake hoses were a ****ing stupid idea?!
I still have that magazine!
Can't remember why but I was looking through some early editions a few months ago and I re-read that review then.
To a lesser extent, you get the same in road bike magazines too, most bikes in there look hopelessly dated.
Fitting a 5” fork to the Sub5 isn’t a practical option as it slackens off the head angle on the bike and destroys some of the tight handling traits that a correct 71° head angle provides.
I know! I bought a Sub5 and was given a free copy of that STW when I picked up the bike from RiksBikeShed in Mabi. My Sub5 was next model year so had a Manitou Black that was adjustable. I whacked it up to lofty 5"/130mm and it was an improvement in bike handling, but the damping was utterly sh*te...
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/2281/2223340796_865b93d53a_k.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/2281/2223340796_865b93d53a_k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/4otcL1 ]Orange Sub5.JPG[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/matt_outandabout/ ]Matt[/url], on Flickr
Still got my Sub 5 and was still riding it untill at least 2020. I agree that a longer fork makes a big difference.
I'm now tempted to get it back up and running again.
Still got my Sub 5
I think about 75% of UK MTBers had a Five of some variety didn't they?! Certainly seemed to be every other bike you saw out in the hills.
And every year, MBR magazine would rave about the latest version and how it made every previous Orange completely obsolete. Even when last year's had been the best of all time ever.
No-one else posting their Compo pics? This was the best-fun bike I ever had, including BMXs. Absolute nutter, and it helped me become a much better rider, giving me confidence for the first time to really attack on downhill bits instead of just holding on and hoping, cheers, again, for the laughs Brant 🙂
I’ve got a nice complete sub 5 here in the shed. Needs to go to a good home really. Too nice for the tip!
This is great, love the flashback!
That riding position! Was gifted a mtb skills "polishing" coaching earlier in the year (how rude to suggest I needed it), I now understand where the straight arms thing came from. It was what we did, and my standard default when things get steep AF was based on 35yrs of practice 😄. Still trying to unlearn it even now, but thankfully bike geo has leaped.
The components used on these helps me explain to myself the large number of wtf moments I have when I look in the contents of the shed. I occasionally ride the old bikes and cannot compute what I used to ride on them (except the 88 Marin which is quite good).
Keep it up, more of this if only to serve as a reminder of what we all went through 😄