Forum menu
1988 Ridgeback, then spent my student loan on a Kona, never looked back. 😉
Still wish i was fitter, faster, better.....
1896, military issue "iron horse" with mary bars and rod brakes.
[img] 
[/img]
1988 for me.
Diamondback Ascent EX was my first mtb.
I used to ride my raleigh striker through the woods that gnarly dudes now ride long travel DH bikes down!
I used to ride my raleigh striker through the woods that gnarly dudes now ride long travel DH bikes down!
Did they ever stop and say "hello"?
Muddy Fox Courier pearl white with yellow decals canti brakes, saddle made from what looked like giraffe hide.
Bought, one of the first, at Avon valley cyclery in about 1986. very common bike at races along with the Ridgeback. Very early days of mountain biking and to get over to llanyrtyd wells was no more than a dream. Quite often saw Tim Flooks in full flight on the Quantocks. Anyone remember Jeremy .......? An early pioneer and influenced by what was happening in the states.
First Mountain Bike was back in 1987 with a Claud Butler something or other. It was purple. I know that much. I smashed the BB out of the frame doing drops in the quarry.
Next up was a British Eagle, then a Raleigh, then a Marin, then... (the list goes on and on and on)
Still love it 🙂
Speaking of all these Muddy Foxs'... did anyone see any of the 10 special gold plated ones they made?
here it is [img] 
[/img]
MrNutt - Member
I used to ride my raleigh striker through the woods that gnarly dudes now ride long travel DH bikes down!
Would those be the Woods Behind Nationwide in Swindon?
It's actually the woods near Pittshanger Lane, opposite the Hoover building.
How did you post the pic???
1988 on my Muddy Fox Roadrunner then bought an Orange Clockwork from Schmoos Cycles in Swansea in ~1990 and LOVED ever minute of it - had to do 2 paper rounds every day for 6 months just to pay back my parents the £600 it was !
Still regret selling the Orange... 🙁
Orange C16R with full STX-RC was my first bike in the 90's. Did a fair bit on it and then bought a Sub 5.
1986
My mum took me offroading (and salmon poaching and shooting) in the early 60s, I was on a tricycle, she was on a raleigh shopper....
singlespeeding on t farm in the 70s
rejoined mtbing after motorbike trail riding got a bit to political in the very late 80s.
RSF type stuff back in the 70s on my converted road race bike - cyclo cross tubs and inverted cut off drops
1990 - GT Tequesta in Purple Haze, with Suntour XC-E groupset.
Yeah, those woods behind the Duke of Kent are well gnarly.
Jesus there are some blasts from the past on here 😉
must have started around 86-87 on a Claud Butler Spectre with Shimano 500LX and Reynolds 501 tubes 😉
after lots of wood riding on the totally unsuitable cammando star bike i got a black and white raleigh mustang the first black and white one sometime around 87 iirc . weighed a ton lol i took all the stickers off sometime later in its life and stuck on neon cables and stickers and a nice triangle frame bag/shoulder carrier thing in neon (i think they came free in mbuk lol) i also used to lust after the marin range (with neon bits on) in two wheels good in leeds 😉
1989 - not that you can tell - twenty years and one week back. Bought the bike the week before but then was away on a field trip for a week before I got to ride it properly. First ride was a circuit of Richmond Park and poor attempts at jumping on east sheen common.
probably about 87 on a Raleigh Winner - all my mates had mustangs! 😀
properly in 99 on a Trek 7000 on the west coast of the states. Only got rid of it last year to someone on here
Raleigh Mustang in the late 80's for me too, after i broke my BMX!
Started bmx in '82, first mountain bike was alpinestars cromega DX in '89ish (still got it in original spec, for sale if anyone wants some old school humour), forgot mtb and concentrated on bmx until big injury in 2002.
Started mtbing again as a SAFER alternative in 2004ish. Still got a lovely bmx race bike though for special occasions.
I have memories of being bought a Peugeot 'mountain bike' when I was 10(ish), c. 1988 and then a progression of Raleighs. Messed around with BMX's quite a bit in my younger days too.
My first proper mountain bike was a Marin Rift Zone bought 2nd hand in '02 when I moved to the Lake District.
never been without a bike since I had my first one sometime around 1973-74. Used to go scrambling in the woods starting sometime in the late seventies on our Raleighs and what have you and in the eighties I always had racers. It was 1990 I when I got my first mountain bike, a Peugeot Adventurer. Purple frame, pink forks and yellow handlebars I think.
Keva
part one; circa '93/'94 on some multicoloured piece of junk riding around shaw/oldham & rochdale with mates. were were at lee/buckstones quarries way back then! bought 2nd hand Marin Indian Fire Trail off LBS owner with Manitou 1 forks. still got the frame that i've been wanting to rebuild for many years
interlude; university, travel, beer, women, parties, 2 snowboarding seasons
part two; a top a hill whilst living in new zealand. hired a Giant something or another and took it up coronet peak near queenstown. took me just 1 hour to realise i had to buy another bike. arrived back in the UK a year later '08, got a job and first thing i bought with my first pay cheque was my norco six-one. haven't given up on the beer, women, partying and snowboarding yet...
Properly in 1998 on a Mongoose Zero-G SX.
Always been a roadie you see, though I had a cheapo to lark about on in the mid eighties.
However back in the early seventies we were hooning about the woods on converted 26" wheel standard bikes i.e Canadian cow-horns, singlespeed, knobly cycle speedway tyres, straightened forks and rear brake only.
First heard about MTBing in '88, a guy I was working with at Amex was riding the SDW.
First went MTBing in '90 in Austin, Texas, we hired some bikes and went riding. I then started to go regularly, either hiring or borrowing bikes, and then bought my first bike Jan '91, a Fusion 1001 as recommended by MBUK as an entry level bike.
2003, 6 yrs on and i'm having my 5th annual two months off due to injury.
God i love bikes.
1987 on a Marin Bear Valley, as a alternative to windless windsurfing days
Tracey
Whenever the grey GT Timberline with Exage and 500LX came out - 1989? Loved it. Put one of the first sets of SPDs on it, the DX ones. Plus the ubiquitous Onza bar ends (neon green).
Upgraded to a black Kona Explosif in 1992 (I think), which I still have. Whacked some Manitou 2s on it once I realised that the Flexstems were rubbish. I also had some white Porcs on it and did a lot of the original Salisbury Plan Challenges, Erlestoke races etc. Happy days indeed.
Late 80's first attempt on a borrowed Raleigh Mustang.
Early 90's - a trip to Leisure Lakes and 3 post dated cheques later I was the proud owner of an Orange Clockwork LX 😆 matt black one, for ever replacing the 'Orange' stickers as they just would not stick.... top mount thumbshifters, not indexed, tyres changed for onza porcupines, 1.8 rear, 2.1 front......
Axa ankle boots, purple and green, toe-clips........ oh, and Troll 2nd skin leggings - vertical 1cm wide stripes in yellow and purple......... 😳 and de-rigeur etto helmet - with ears.......... 😳 😳
Halogen days 😆
Bike nicked 1994 'ish - evidently 'robbing to order' as the orange went but the tea-leaves left, you guessed it - a Mustang...... 🙄 Only 'replaced' 2 years ago and I'm only now getting back into riding..... 😆
Why oh why did I leave it so long....
I had a Raleigh Technium(the white one) in the late 80's, I had a 12-23 cassette on it along with a 10cm Cinelli 1a stem and spesh Ground controls on it. I won my first MTB race around a forest near Dalkieth on it.
Pretty good reading alot of the above, some folks have been mtbers for a while. Also the list of bikes, strippy tights and fashion victim helmets has brought back a few memories. Committed loads of those crime especially the troll tights thing (what a fool I looked. Meself started mid 80's on a Muddy Fox explorer bought new and to big, moved on to a Kona Explosif with green paint and yellow splatter, Alpinestars raised chainstay big that every weld cracked (a mate noticed it just before we rode down Jacobs Ladder), Orange Prestige matt black with Pace RC51's full XT (1992 I think) still have this bike in dungeon. Tried a KHS Ti frame that I managed to get down to 23lb but kept breaking the ally bolts all the time (zipties are life savers). Then managed three Pace frames with various bits (still have a shinny square tube frame), Tomac 98 and am now in love with a Merlin works 4 plus a global hardtail. Also got a Jake the Snake various road bikes and a Tandem. I supose it's a long list but I love bikes, biking and bike people, life would not be the same without an escape to pedal as often as possible. The laugh for me is that I only start because I was sick of getting rain off from climbing one particular wet summer. Also I would not have a wife that can build wheels. Hmmm...what aboring old fart I have become.
1985 - on a white Saracen Conquest - even won a few MTB races that year! also rode the 3 Peaks Cyclo Cross race on it (think they banned MTB's the following year?)
If childhood BMX shenannigans in the woods don't count, then 1988, shortly after buying issue 1 of Mountain Biking UK at Charing Cross station whilst on a day out to London with my dad!
First was a 15 spd Emmelle Cougar 15 (21" with room to grow of course - I was only 12!) then, like Joxster - Had a white Raleigh Technium around 1990 - The 'Chill' I think, aluminium bonded frame was fairly space age at the time. Followed by saracen Tuff Trax comp which was nicked while I did my paper round on it and replaced by an Alpinestars Al-mega.
Sadly (or not, perhaps) I then discovered girls, cars and beer around 17 and didn't go near a bike until 2004 - when I was utterly confused by all the new terminology and genres...what happened to just 'riding'?...things had moved on a huge amount, though I certainly don't miss the endless hours spent trying to set up cantilever brakes 'just so'!
Glad to say I still ride with some of the same guys I did aged 12.
Must have been about 88/89 on a Ridgeback 602. Moved onto a Marin Pine Mountain after that got nicked and then a Kona Lava Dome shortly after in the early 90s. Got a Zaskar LE in '95 and rode that until about a week ago when a shiny new FSR XC arrived.
I also had a Jamis and an RTS 1 I think, can't remember the make it was a full suss and I had to replace the elastomers in the forks
'89 on a Trek 830, but in the early 70's I frequently broke my Sun racer riding offroad.
Great to read this, so many bikes I lusted after in their day, and Axa boots in purple & green, remember them well. First ever forray into mountain biking was on a Giant, hired for a few days around 88 and taken out to play on the Southern Upland way. First serious event around 1990 on a Raleigh Lizard. That showed me how awful the bike was and upgraded to another Raleigh that had team issue on it somewhere. Still fully rigid in those days, can still remember that burning sensation at the end of the downhills. Moved on to a series of Diamond Backs and suspension forks (at last) Even had a carbon fibre one way before it was trendy. Ended up on a Zaskar around 2000 which really was a great bike and just so fast. Since then been down the full suspension route, but really didnt get on with it so went backwards to a singlespeed rigid inbred which i still love. Been playing on a Soul for a while, but its not the love affair I hoped it would be. Just bought a Scandal in hope of re-capturing some of that Zaskar speed.
1984-85 razzing round the field at the back of our house on a pink girls bike with Frosties reflectors
85-92 razzing about hills on old BMX / Grifter / random road bike
92-94 razzing about the hills on a raleigh mustang
94-97 razzing about the hills on Orange Prestige / Orange Elite
97-98 Racing on my Marin Rift Zone
99-2003 BMX
03-08 nothing
08-now Kona SS & Marin Rift Zone
I've been riding for 25 years, bloody hell, quarter of a century, you'd think I'd be good at it by now
1988!! 🙁
1986- After years of offroad motorcycling and road cycling I thought I'ld combine the two but nearly coughed my lungs up on the first ride and put the bike back in the shed for a few months. Tried again on a less ambitious route and have been hooked ever since.
Not my first but a very early bike was a Saracen with a chain stay rear u-brake. What a genius design!
1986 here too - on the first Marin Palisades Trail in the country 🙂
Wrote my degree thesis on the management of mountain biking in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1992. Used my girlfriends bike for "research purposes", and got hooked, despite my first bike being a Kirk Revolution