[Closed] What was the first bike or frame you really wanted but never got?

Remember wanting a Mission Cycles Battery frame (I think that's what it was called) too after seeing it in magazines, never seen one in person but looked pretty amazing

Raleigh Activator 2.
Quite glad i didn't get it now as it would likely have put me off riding forever

Always wanted a Pace RC200.
Then I got a set of Pace forks and the terrible build quality and lack of warranty support put me right off

Cannondale Raven. Saw it in a catalogue, wanted it more than oxygen, but it was £3,000 in the late 90’s and that was a bit beyond a 13/14 year olds pocket money.

Won’t ride one now, even if I got the chance. Never meet your heroes. (I did once, a GT pro cruiser, lusted after one at uni, bought one years later, was awful.)

Mountain Cycle San Andreas.
They really should make a modern version, it still looks like it's from the future.

Klein adroit mission control. Ooft.

Orange Vitamin T.

I remember seeing Lester Noble riding around on one at the sailing club. It was stunning.

I had a short (like 1km up 1km back down) ride on it. Compared to my 1980's Peugeot road bike and 1990's Raleigh 'ATB', it felt amazingly light and fast.

Sadly, Orange only gave me cheap sails and a bunch of stickers for the boat at that time. And paper rounds don't buy titanium.

Look at it.

Mine was an Orange 222 and the Sub 5 that the lbs had in the window in the early 00's. Ended up with a Sub 5 from the classifieds many years later but never did end up with an Orange dh bike. Having owned several Fives and Alpines over the years it seems that they have fallen off a bit, i've returned to riding after 4 years out of the loop and they're no longer a common sight on the trails and the newer models seem to be prone to cracking, certainly put me off owning another one.

Cannondale Prophet? Might actually get one next weekend though as a mates got one as his turbo trainer bike and is getting rid 😁

Close between that and the 2005 Specialized Enduro. Living in Sheffield at the time I think I'd figured out that what we really needed was longer slacker trail bikes with lots of travel. Specialized delivered, but I could never afford one as a student! Seemed to take the rest of the industry a very long time to catch up with the concept.

There was a bare, fat tubed aluminium Funk frame sitting in the window of Clerkenwell Cycles for probably a year in the late 80s. I was a bike courier then, and used to ride past there numerous times a week and lust after it, but it was way too pricey. One day, I noticed that it was not there any more, sold to some rich undeserving wretch. About 10 years later, I had moved over to controlling, rather than riding for a living. I was chatting with my co-controller about bikes, and mentioned the Funk. Turned out he knew the bloke who bought it! Only thing was that the rear end was apparently about 5mm out of alignment. Dunno what the end result was, but glad I didn't get stuck with it, already had one Friday Afternoon Bike, but that's gonna be another thread.

Can't find a decent picture but a GT LTS-DH. It's what the MBUK team were riding when I bought my first magazines in 96/97. I obviously never got one as I was a young teenager and the bike was worth more than my step dad's car.

The LBS used to have one hanging up with the obligatory red AC cranks and chainguide fitted. Stunning bike but they were crap in real life.

When I could buy my own bikes I really wanted a Spooky Metalhead but I could only afford a Bandwagon. Nice bike at the time, still got the frame somewhere.

Proflex or that Marin fs bike with the manitou forks at the rear.

I was oddly enamoured with the GT 'Lobo STS' in the late 90s probably the stupidest thing you could want looking back, glued together composite tubes with aluminium lugs... For DH.

It had it all, bike specific Rockshox trunion mounted pull shock, guaranteed to fail and be impossible to find spares for...

Thank God I never had the money.

So many in the mid to early 90’s:

GT Zaskar and LTS

Scott Endorphin

Orange Clockwork

An Alpinesport Al-Mega which was hanging on the staircase in Centresport in Leeds in the early nineties. It looked so radical with fat tubing and elevated chainstays. Just googled it and have somewhat disappointed myself.

A De Kerf SST, Always will be a De Kerf I reckon.

Not a frame but I always wanted a set of those spin 3 spoke mtb wheels.

Kona Hei Hei or King Kahuna then the " Out of Bounds" version the Score. These things very rarely come up for sale when they do the Kona Retro Brigade are all over them and of course the price sky rockets 🙄🙄🙄
Example a few weeks ago a 1997 Hei Hei complete bike came up for sale for £2000!!!!! It sold in a matter of days, it did look nice mind!

The Amp Full suspension frame with the Amp four-bar linkage fork.
This one but it was all chrome

As a kid? a Raleigh Grifter

As a big kid re an MTB? - Probably a Dawes Edge or Alpinestars AL Mega DX

2002 Giant DH Team with cherry red Boxxers.

Pace RC100 - - never owned, never ridden..

I have owned a Yo Eddy , Bontrager Race Lite and a Klein, which were fantastic to awful in that order. The Klein was just too stiff, dead for me (I'm short)

probably the stupidest thing you could want looking back, glued together composite tubes with aluminium lugs… For DH.

Not sure if sarcastic but......

Obe-Dan-Kenobi!

But on topic, it was a Marin from the late 80s when I was about 11. Think it was a Pine Trail, or something along those lines. It was unfortunately too expensive for my folks, so they bought me a Saracen Eiger instead. I totally adored that bike though, so it was all good.

Raleigh Burner BMX in blue.

Sunn Radical from the Vouilloz/Chausson era.

Sunn Radical from the Vouilloz/Chausson era.

This.

Mk 1 Raleigh Burner Tuff II out of my mam's catalogue. She could only afford the basic red and yellow one (which was still pretty cool to 10 year old me!) Thanks mam 😋

It was anything dekerf, a mate had one and it was just stunning. Still look on eBay for dekerf frames every now and then.
Original Santa Cruz chameleon was up there as well. That thing looked all the right amounts of cool when I was a teenager!
Full suspension wise had all the gt frames between my riding group so it was intense m1 and intense tracer/tazer whatever it was called

Probably a Kirk Magnesium frame.

Having ridden one about 20 years ago I think I had a lucky escape.

Yeti ARC with a Tioga disc drive.

Klein Adriot frame that was hanging up at Horswills cycles.

1993 GT Team Avalanche

Early 1990’s and everyone lusted after the team PDM kit and bikes:

https://steel-vintage.com/concorde-squadra-team-pdm-classic-racer-from-the-1990s-detail

And I believe the first iteration of konas ‘Kilauea’ came in a fetching ‘carver cup blue’ colour.

Neither bike manifested into my existence. Sob!

I grew up not a million miles away from Worksop (actually in the village Tom Simpson came from) and the school bus used to go past the Sun Carlton factory. So that was an early lust. Later as an adult it would be a Tommasini Super Prestige. Deeside Cycles were stockists. They did those early Vitus Carbon Fibre tube/alloy logged frames which I also lusted after.

Activator 2 here as well. But it wasn't a "one that got away", I realised it was rubbish and got something else... First "lusted after" was a Xizang.

Despite being 50 yrs old, the bike I wanted but never got was/is an Ancillotti Scarab 29er. I’ve wanted an Ancillotti since the mid 2000’s when I got to ride a DH down the Pleney; it was amazing - the suspension was way ahead of anything I’d ridden, and felt glued whilst still playful. I was blown away.

The Scarab was meant to be for my 50th birthday and despite emailing umpteen times, using Facebook messenger etc. I couldn’t get any response whatsoever. I’d promised my self the trip to Italy for collection etc. But a total comms blackout means it’ll now never happen. I’ve now had a change of plan and ordered myself a new Cotic Flaremax gen4. I can’t wait..!!!

The Amp Full suspension frame with the Amp four-bar linkage fork.
This one but it was all chrome

Had one of those, with the 4.5” travel Yellow RST forks that everyone had. Snapped it clean in half about 5” back from the head tube, down tube and crossbar snapped.
We’d been riding in Wigan when ‘street’ was popular, and had been round the back of whSmiths jumping off loading bays and for anyone that knew the old Wigan tech steps, jumping them to flat. Looking back it was a stupid thing the do with it, but do it we did. Set off home riding up maines rd and just give the forks a squish stood up and BANG on the deck wondering what the F had just happened. Snapped ‘just riding along’

I’d always wanted an RST.

Approaching my 18th birthday (in 1990...) my parents were asking me what my dream bike was. OMG THEY WERE GOING TO BUY ME A PACE RC100! A few weeks later, my birthday came and I was handed a box significantly smaller than a bike..... It was a portable TV. Yay.....

GT RTS1, my dad started laughing when I pointed it out and said his car cost less

Tomac’s 1991 Technium 🤤
https://dirtmountainbike.com/news/tomac-reunited.html

And the Salsa a la carte in jellybean paint that JMC & Sophie Brooks raced on for MBUK, please.

We're going back now... but the first bike that really made an impression on me was a mate's bike, like this (but with flight cranks). Just blew me away.

Never got one myself as got into racing and race bikes, and the PK wasn't really the right tool for that.

First? Possibly the Fisher CR7 after reading a review in MBUK.

Aluminium front end bolted to a cromoly rear.

Never did get it. Around that time I was riding a 1990 Team Marin. I'd love to get that frame again.

mildred
Free Member

Despite being 50 yrs old, the bike I wanted but never got was/is an Ancillotti Scarab 29er. I’ve wanted an Ancillotti since the mid 2000’s when I got to ride a DH down the Pleney; it was amazing – the suspension was way ahead of anything I’d ridden, and felt glued whilst still playful. I was blown away.

I always loved trick framed motorbikes so the first time I saw an Ancilloti I was in love, it's like a spondon mountain bike. Nearly got one, in the weeks-long window n the mid 2010s when you could actually buy one from a shop.

There's a few I remember lusting after as a teenager first getting into MTB back in the late 80's/early 90's and never got to own or ride any of them

Kestrel MXZ seeing it flicking through pages of the Freewheel catalogue pre internet shopping days

Pace RC100, the winner of one of my first races was on a Pace and at the time I thought it was the coolest bike ever. I think the the team riders had purple anodised ones rather than the more common grey/silver?

And the Klein Attitude in the classic pink, white and green

Attitude - pink/white/green