[Closed] When did you get your first MTB?

Raleigh Apex in 1993. Girven flex stem and 400LX gears 🙂 then I got a paper round and steadily replaced with XT, thumb shifters and all. took a year but god I was proud of myself (and bike) when I'd done it.

I think it was a Claude Butler, resprayed black with 18 gears of wonderful friction shifting. And too big for me!

I bought a Diamondback Ascent EX ('88 model) in 1989.

My first proper one was a Trailstar I got in about 2005. Always bmx'ed before that.

1987 Marin Bear Valley

1986 when I bought a Claud Butler from Langsett Cycles which was knicked within a year and replaced with a Saracen Tufftrax.
I wasn't impressed at first. I had always cycled but had been racing off-road motorbikes which rather spoiled me for mtb. Once I realised I wasn't going to get up Peak climbs as if I had 30 bhp at hand I really got into it and have stayed so over the last 26 years.
Incidentally I was interested to see in the article about older riders in the last issue, how many came from an off road motorbike background.
How many more of you are there out there?

1992, saracen Sahara elite. Don't know what I'd of done with my spare time and cash if that hadn't happened. Christ, that's 20 years gone by!

Oh, and I think it was in about 88/89

Do £20 Honda 90s count as proper off road motorbikes? 😀

I was a walker and a roadie, MTB just seemed like a great way of combining both.

1989 Trek 830 - Biopace rings and all.

Around 1992 or there abouts and it was this Bear Valley SE:

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I always had a BMX up till that point- i played the old game of bluff with my parents to get it, saying id save up all my paper round money for an entire year to get it (yeah right! 😆 ).
Fortunately mum and dad realised there was no way that was going to happen and that i really, really, really, really wanted this bike- so they bought it for me 😀
I also became really rather good at washing up and cleaning dads car at that point.....
I've been an MTB addict ever since.

Purple Dawes, it was a low end model, 100 or 200LX gears, it was heavy, even the bars were steel. '91 or 92

2007 i think... maybe 2008.

2003, Claud Butler Stone River.

Before that, I was just a walker who tutted at mountain-bikers... 😳

shogun 1988, replaced 1989 with clockwork orange which i still have. i cant remember in what order but spds and rockshox came out a little later ( the spd's first i think ) i bought a pair of green sidi shoes they and shimano were all there was.
i had one of the first pairs of mag 20's when they were imported and when they were sold 20 years later the guy who bought them emailed for days insisting they were nt original and were really mag 21's..

1988 - a very small white Peugeot with 15 gears and 24" alloy rims and riser bars!

1992.

Here it is in its latest guise. 20 years old baby!

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1990 I think. A 'Pro Bike - Macho' in fluoro pink and white with rakishly bent top tube. Used for commuting and then bike messengering. Always wanted one of those Marin Bear Valleys...

Ridgeback S in 1986 - I still remember pretty much every inch of it 🙂

1990 - some Raleigh 'first go at a kind of MTB thing', but not really.

All my mates had Saracens in an ace yellow colour, and I was jealous 🙁

1985/6 I think, Specialized Rockhopper, yellow. Wanted a Muddy Fox Courier (Comp) but they never arrived in the LBS, bought the Spesh instead.

I believe it's still going strong (not with me though!)

1994 for me Claude Butler Zagato in retina burning neon purple
made out of scaffolding i think
brilliant fun

1987, some Peugeot 10 speed thing. It was pretty good actually.
That got nicked.
Then got a Marin Palisades from Mike Cooksons in '89.
That got nicked.
Then got a Muddy Fox Courier from a bloke at work. He might have nicked it.

1989 Raleigh Mustang. Not just any Mustang, though, it was the Mustang [b]SIS[/b] like this:

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I rode it all over the place, I broke two frames (15 year frame guarantee!) and just about every other part.

I enjoyed riding it but, as a mountain bike, it was rubbish.

Carrera Krakatoa - somewhere around 89/90. Rode it all over the welsh hills until it was absolutely knackered. RIP.

One of these, 2005 -

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1988, Raleigh Dune Dancer was my first. I was 17. Bought it on the never never from my mums Grattan catalogue! I was hoping it was going to be a BMX for grown ups but it wasn't quite. It wasn't until I borrowed a GT Timberline off a friend a few years later that I really got the bug.

When I was 30, a Claud Butler Steel HT, before then I was into BMX and road.

Wish I still had it, was a great bike.

1986 - nasty thing my Dad made me buy.

Team Marin. Second hand in early 90's. I still have it, and use it for commuting duties. Still on the original shifters and derailleurs.

GT Outpost, 1990, aged 35. I thought, 'wow, 21 gears, I should be able to climb up anything on that'. I couldn't.

bout 90ish, was a regular motorbike trail rider and the writing was on the wall for access back then, a bloke in the club ran a bike shop so Giant Terrago DX, and off I went. (Still used by a mates missus as a stable bike). However being a country boy every bike I ever had was a mountain bike, including my tricycle.

Wow, I'm impressed. With the usual STW willy waving I'm surprised no one said they bought their first MTB/invented MTBing in 1967 😛

3rd September 1986 - Red Specialized Rockhopper from Rayment's in Brighton.

1990 Claud Butler Pagan (I think), mine had pink cables, biopace cranks and looked a bit like this:

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1990 I think. Raleigh Amazon, 100GS and Biopace rings. Had been borrowing my brothers' Raleigh Eurotech prior to that. When I got my 1993 Kona it was a revalation, it must have been 10lbs lighter!

1987 Raleigh Maverick (Burgundy) with 15 (yes, count them, FIFTEEN!) gears. 😀 Sachs Rival mechs, Lee Chi Shifters, Cheng Shin centre ridge tyres, risers bars and a stubby stem before such things came into fashion (again) - happy days. I got it for my birthday from Halfords in Renfield St in Glasgow. It was a great bike...until the frame cracked which is something of a theme with me!

After that, I got an Orange Prestige from my folks (again , a birthday present). It was ace too.....until the frame cracked. Replaced by two Hecklers....which cracked. A Turner 5 Spot....which cracked. A Cove Hummer....which cracked. Hmmmm, perhaps I need to buy burlier bikes or not ride up and down mountains? That might do it!

Cheers

Sanny

87/88 and it was a Townsend from the bike shop in Shrewsbury - replaced with my current Kona Cindercone (well current frame anyway) a year later.

Super basic but still managed the Wrekin, Peaks, borders and the Long Minge.

All up IIRC it was about £99.00.

EDIT: Dave Mellor Cycles - cheers Dave, that's 25 years of fun you got me into.

my dad was a roadie and a bit of a mtb'er without really knowing it so we always had reasonably off road capable bikes. my first 26inch wheeled bike was some apollo thing he got me when i was about 12/13 and i rode that till i saved enough money from odd jobs till i got a raleigh rsp with stx-rc spec and indy c's. good bike but weighed about the same as a neutron star... before that i rode a 24inch raleigh mustang mtb which was a bomb!!! probably still doing the rounds on a council estate somewhere

1987 - Giant Super Sierra....no pics unfortunately ....got nicked from outside my front door! gutted.....

91, Alpinestars cro-mega DX. Sold it last year.

Mid 2003, a Norco Storm. Had that for about 6 months before getting a Giant XTC3, great bike.

2005 bought an old early 90's GT timberline for £30 and rode it into the ground....gave the frame away last year to a recycling project

1986 Muddy Fox Courier after years of BMX's

Loved it !!!!!!

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