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Talking of Raleigh Choppers, a mark 1 in blue was the bike of my youth in the early 70s, so yep, I’d love it back. :good:
Yes and I did (well arguable not really my youth but a long time ago), My youth would be a BMX and I am not riding one of those around at 56 years of age.
My only bike is a 1996 Cannondale V500 and I ride it 3 or 4 times a week on gravel and singletrack and it is great. Only nod to modern stuff are the tubeless tyres.
The exact same bike? Lord no. Modern (read: correctly fitting) equivalents of the same bike, absolutely.
There a lot of similarities amongst the current squadron, vs the OGs
First proper MTB was a 1998 GT Outpost Trail.....hi-tensile steel frame, rigid forks, threaded headset, what a time to be alive!
I remember my mates taking the piss because they all had aluminum frames - Zaskars, Hardrocks etc.
It was peak Dirt Magazine time as well, so i quickly put a pair of RST 281s on the front and started jumping down steps!
Unsurprisingly i snapped the head tube off it!
One bike that i would like to get back is my Sunn BMIX - it was the chrome one (maybe 97), bought it off a mate when my shiny new Scott got stolen - it was great, singlespeed, Magura Raceline brakes, IRC Missile tyres!
I remember taking the brace off the bars and promptly snapping them!
I had a Muddy Fox pathfinder as my first MTB - I'd had various things before that. I wouldn't want to ride that. I'd be more interested in the Dynatech that followed it, and the Yo Eddy, yes I'd like that back thanks. But too much to buy for nostalgia purposes.
Nope. But if i were to see a mint condition Mongoose Californian from around 1982/3 at a reasonable price who knows?
I had an orange thing that was the spit of a Schwinn Stingray back in the late 70s/early 80s. It appeared from nowhere under the Christmas tree as a combined birthday/Xmas pressie and I rode the wheels off it until I got my first BMX. I loved that bike and I'd happily have it back for old times sake. Ride it though? Not a hope. The saddle was uncomfortable enough in 1984 and I'm not sure it'd go high enough these days.
It was a lot like - 
but was orange and had a smooth black seat, 3 piece cotter pin cranks, a shorter (white) gear lever and not quite so ape hanger bars. If anyone knows exactly what is was from that description I'd be very grateful for the info.
I did look into buying a Cannondale M800 as I had in the 90's but they were going for silly money.
I actually got my 2001 Gary Fisher back that got me back into riding once I left uni. The difference here was that it was the actual bike and my mate was going to throw it in the skip due to a house move. Couldn't let that happen so I had it back. It's now a singlespeed 'pub' bike with huge rise trekking bars and semi-slick tyres.
No, no and thrice no. I just don't get retro, especially from my own past. I am glad that people can be bothered to maintain and restore old machinery for me to look at but I just want the best technology I can afford in car/MTB/ l motor cycle
@sniff - that Topanga was my first mountain bike! I loved the purple/black colour and seem to remember it came with the old 'double button' rapid-fire shifters and biopace chainrings!
Thanks for posting that!
Yes and I did (well arguable not really my youth but a long time ago), My youth would be a BMX and I am not riding one of those around at 56 years of age.
I plan to be still riding my BMX at 56. I'll have a teenage boy to keep up with.
It does have 22" wheels though. I'm not going back to 20.
Prior to the Trek 930, there had been an 830 that got battered on my paper round and various 2nd hand Raleigh’s and a Redline BMX. But it was the 930 that I started exploring and properly mountain biking
I had a 1985 saracen kili flyer, Reynolds tubing and a mix of Shimano and suntour xc.
It was super slack and stable, and it had heaps of braze one. It was pretty upright with riser bars and a brooks saddle. I think it would have made a good bike packing bike. It was friction shifting
I loved it, had a few nice upgrades and fat tyres.
You could have ridden it around the world, nothing ever broke and it was easy to fix
Couple of years later everything went flat bar long stem, ned overend cindi whitehead no seat challenge.
I wouldn't want the saracen again but it was a perfectly good bike off road and would still be
Nope, wasn’t particularly enamored of it the first time.
@sharkattack - I had a spin on a modern 20” BMX belonging to one of the local kids when I was at the pump track last week, it was sized for a 6’ human and had 2.4 tyres on it. Apart from the fact that the brake was terrible I was amazed at how much better it rode than the BMXs I had as a kid (and even 20 years ago), fast and forgiving (for a BMX), it almost made me buy one Almost.
Yeah modern BMX's are great. The ones we used to ride in the late 90's early 2000's that they now call mid-school, I wouldn't touch any those with a barge pole even thought I was having fun at the time. Brakes haven't changed though, they're universally crap. Made even worse by removable bosses in the frame.
This is my current one...
Bought cheap as an experiment but I like it so much that I just sold my Transition PBJ. I'll slowly upgrade this then maybe swap the frame for a posh S&M Mad Dog which takes a disc brake.
That is the difference. The BMXs from my youth are from 1982! Mostly raced based bikes at that time with some very odd looking freestyle frames and parts starting to get popular. This is teh sort of thing I would buy if really after the bike I wanted from my youth
Would I buy an Emmelle Laser? No, no way at all.
Would I buy the GT Zaskar with full XT and Judy SL's that my mate had? Yes, yes I would.
Would I buy the bike from my youth? No. Would I like to try it again? Definiteley!
I think my old Raleigh Bomber (with 3speed SA hub) would still make a nice canal path cruiser.
Ooh that Pro racer is nice. Interesting it's got 401s. rather than the hutch crank.
Whatever happened to Hutch anyway? Was there ever a more aspirational brand in BMX?
I had a whole host of skip bikes, Halfords garbage and assorted junk that my dad cobbled together for me but one of these was my first propley good bike when I was 15, a 2000 Kona Hahanna with full Shimano STI's and Glow-In-The-Dark decals. I vividly remember driving down to JE James in Sheffield with Dad to collect it with my hard, hard earned £179.99 in cash gripped in my hand.
within a couple of year it had Manitou X Vert, Club Roost bars, hand built XT/D521 rims, an XT parallel push on the rear and a first gen XT 4 pot disc brake on the front. It was awesome and I rode the heck out of it... till I got it robbed at knifepoint for it (and my mate on his bright red Rockhopper)!
Would I want one now? Absolutely not. Maybe to hang on the wall if i had the garage space, but thats it...
My first "ATB" was a Giant Stonebreaker in yellow and pink. 18 Suntour gears and weighed so much it made its own gravity so no I wouldn't want one again!
My first proper "MTB" is a different story though. My (at the time) next door neighbour had a brother who was something to do with research and development at Raleigh (back when they still made some pretty high end bikes) and they had been sent some prototype aluminium frames to see if they wanted to produce bikes with them. They were really oversize for the time (think Klein) and were really light but very strong and with bang up to date geometry. They were sent 6 frames and put 2 on the hydraulic test rigs and tested them to destruction. They were apparently much stronger and stiffer than anything else that they had ever tested. They decided that it would be too expensive to mass produce them and so the remaining 4 frames were built up with components off the high end production Raleighs at the time. 2 blue ones with suspension forks and 2 red ones that were ridgid but with a Gervin Flexstem. My neighbour got one of the blue ones and I got the last red one. They had Mavic ceramic rims, high end shimano gearing with rapidfire shifters and titanium handlebars and seatposts. It was so much lighter than anyone else's bike that I knewand was a real flying machine. Would I buy it again? Absolutely!
1st "mtb" an emmelle californian absolutely not, garbage
1st "proper mtb" rigid, canti brakes, silly long stems, narrow bars, steep head angles, triple chainsets, crap tyres, nah dont think so. I appreciate seeing retro stuff (say a muddy fox courier comp on commuter duties last night, thought nice, did not want one). Im moving away from hardtails ever mind fully rigid. Guess Im getting old, I want more comfortable ride (still got a "fast" HT and a SS, but I limit my time on them). I guess it's nice to reminisce but that's all, I dont want to actually ride one.
No thanks.
Some of the old designs were really crap and verging on dangerous.
e.g. Choppers << I hated them as a kid and still dislike them now
A lot of bikes today are (mostly) well thought out and beautiful things.
What a time to (still) be alive ,etc,etc 🙂
A Raleigh Lizard so no, but I would definitely take the paint-scheme
I have a 98 STS in the loft. Ride it occasionally as it looks awesome. But am always scared of the likelihood of a nasty cracking noise
Probably not
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I like looking at this.
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And this. If you have the room, why not? Tinkering with bikes is fun!
@sniff I had a 95 Traverse in that same colour scheme. Still do, it's gonna be my round town bike. Might take a holesaw to the flat chainstay brace to get some fatter tyres in though.
Replacement was a 99 GT Timberline in the lovely metallic green, would have another for the same use.