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A 21" Dawes Tracker. To big for me even now..
18speed Exage Country Trail gears.
It was, well. A 501 steel Tank of a bike, still it got me into the whole off-road thing.
Ah, misread the question. The sierra was a present. First bought bike was a mongoose iboc comp frame I had tagged onto an import order with an outdoor shop. Fitted it out with project 2s, stx/lx groupset, mavic rims, zoom finishing kit and a nice sella turbo saddle. In my mind it was rocketship fast. Couldn't afford the first gen spds though, so rode it with my ngubas (sp?) in toestraps for a year or so whilst I saved for spds. So c early 90s for that beaut !
Edit - getting confused. Must have been lx with dx thumbies. Stx is what I replaced the crankset with later as I think stx was mid 90s.
1988 Saracen Tufftrax in yellow. Loved it and so wish I still had it.
Another Raleigh mustang 20" for xmas 1987. Still got the video of me getting is and shredding the snow on x-mas morning!
Raleigh bomber then a Raleigh mustang, 1st proper was a 93 cindercone which was mint.
'89 Kona Cindercone - 2nd hand in '91, still got it, still works
1994 when I bought a '93 Orange Prestige frame from Leisure Lakes in Bury, got it cheap as it was "last seasons" model.
Prior to that i had some Claud Butler Magna abomination bought from the Grattan catalogue or something, Alu frame, black/green speckled paint.
Original one was stolen and replaced... with the same model! 😥 the second one I completely broke the dropout off it in a crash 😀
Never touched a mountain bike until my mid 20s when I bought a'95 Kona Lava Dome
3x7 gripshift, canti brakes
I loved that bike - I still have the frame and must build it up sometime
First ATB ride was June 13th 1991, on a hired Marin, the day before I asked my now-wife if she'd go out with me.
1992 - bought my brother's GT Outpost off him
1995 - bought a new Kona Hahanna. Followed by an Inbred in 2004ish and an insurance replacement after it was nicked.
Another Muddy Fox Courier in bright yellow in 1987. It was second hand and I brought it off a truck driver, though why he had it I have no idea.
That was the first real MTB, but before that I used to chuck an old Coventry eagle bike with those steel rod brakes (leather brake blocks!) around the local berms and jumps we made, until the head tube departed from he rest of the frame leaving me in a very odd chopper pose sliding down the road in a shower of sparks.
1990. Some crappy thing I kept for 6 months then went mad & got a Saracen Tufftrax which really kicked me into off road cycling.
I had some crappy Townsend thing in about 89/90 got nicked about a month later!!
1991 GT Timberline - bought with my first Christmas bonus as an apprentice.
Up till that point all my paper round/odd job money was going on bmx but I was getting a bit burnt out on it.
In 93, a Marin Bear Valley.
Raleigh Mirage in Purple a Gate of a bike
Ming the Merciless - Member
Some horrific Peugeot thing from Halfrauds on the never never back in 1987. I really wanted the Kirk magnesium thing but couldn't afford it.
Me too - apart from the credit as I was 13... Mine was a Peugeot Lynx in a light metallic blue.
postierich - Member
Raleigh Mirage in Purple a Gate of a bike
Reynolds 501 with Shimano Exage 300LX?
I also built up an old bike into a chopper using scaffolding tubes then subsequently cut them back down to make a stiffened front end. Totally gutted I don't have pictures of it all as I spent so much time experimenting with stuff back then.
My road bike got stolen, a Columbus sl Battaglin. My insurance policy had less than a month to go and the company paid out. I bought the first of the Rockhoppers that came into the UK, I was poised to buy a Saracen Conquest but the bike shop I worked in had just seen the new Specialized bikes and told me hold fire.
I had to go for a 21 inch frame as my heels caught the cantilever brakes on the 18 inch frame. Wasn't everyone's first mountain bike too big?
First ride = first crash
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Mine was a specialised hardrock in pink/ purple from about 1989 I guess. Spent a few yrs riding it everywhere and upgrading bits as they wore out. Can't remember where I got it but used to use Martyn Ashfield cycles in risca where bill used to hand build the wheels.
Then in 1993 I bought a clockwork frame from sunset in Cardiff and transferred all the upgraded bit to that in my flat in Plymouth. Ended up covered in xt groupset, dx thumbing, onza clipless pedals, use seatpost, control tech stem and bar ends flite ti saddle, blue anodised bolts everywhere, manitou 3 fork after a while. Proper arse up head down light race machine. Ritchey z max skinwall/ reddy brown tyres. It really was gorgeous.
Still got it now but singlespeed with brown big apple tyres as my pub/ shopping bike. Still rides great. Best money I've ever spent on anything.
Sometime in the late 80's a driver for Grattan catalogues delivered a Claud Butler to my flat in Headingley. It sat in the hall way for a while then I start using it.
Had for a couple of years until it was stolen buy an Asda truck driver.
1996 Scott Vail
bought that just before moving to that top MTB destination called Holland.
Having had a go on a pals Raleigh Mustang I was hooked. I lusted after a Peugeot Lazer 15 and Apollo Blizzard but it took me so long to save up I upgraded and ended up with a 1989 Saracen Tufftrax. Think it was actually 1990 by the time I/my mum had paid in full and taken delivery.
My best mate got a 1990 Marin Palisades on the same day.
1993, GT Talera from Colin Lewis. Saved half from paper round and parents paid half.
Immediately commenced the upgrade route , sold it to a mate for a ridiculous profit and bought a Grey M500 frame with RC35s, which was my first true love.
Late 80's, maybe 1989. I rode an off road event on my hybrid and really enjoyed it, but realised it would have been so much better on a proper MTB. I test rode a second hand Team Marin, it was so good I bought it for an outrageous price that I now can't remember.
3 years ago I was knocked off it and a seat stay was snapped and twisted. I had it mended but it's never been quite the same. I still have it, though now it has been relegated to pub transport duties.
Shogun Trail breaker - '86ish. BMX since '80
Rudge bi-frame in 1980, the year my son was born and wife passed her driving test. It was intended to be my "commuter" but it became my "fitness trainer" to help with my squash. Due to having asthma I really struggled for quite some time, still do sometimes.
First "real" bike was a Raleigh Max followed by a Bontrager Privateer in '96, used sons Trek 8000 for a couple of years before that 😀
From and old thread 😀
BFITH - Member
1987 - Giant Super Sierra....no pics unfortunately ....got nicked from outside my front door! gutted.....POSTED 5 YEARS AGO #
Possibly 8th, probably 9th birthday, so July '88/'89,sparkly purple Prompto Equalizer (yes, with a 'z'). Bought from a shop on Wallisdown Roundabout, Poole; now a Sue Ryder shop it seems. I really wanted a red/orange Emmelle but Dad wanted the cheapest possible... I don't remember much about it, other than my parents letting me cycle off with friends in a way I find unimaginable with my own children (which I regret hugely). My gang would go to a local hill and charge down it full speed with no helmets until we fell off, which didn't take long. My mum got me a white Bell helmet but I think I'd just learnt what a bellend was and refused to wear it. I liked doing skids too, so much so that my dad had to replace the rear tyre after three weeks, telling me I'd have to buy the next one.
I started a paper-round at 12 and by the time I was 14/15 bought a marbled black/red Boss STX RC, which was fantastic - bombing along the Poole-Bournemouth promenade at night with no lights... It got nicked from my girlfriend's garden in 1996 and with the insurance got a chromed Muddy Fox that I never got on with and sold to help pay for my Yamaha TZR 125. I think that was my last bike until a Breezer Lightning Team in 2012. Intervening commuter and road bikes in London and Sheffield.
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My first ATB was one of these, complete with biopace chain rings in around '94 when I was the tender age of 25. I can still remember hurling myself off the Shropshire hills on it with the mostly decorative brakes making for some 'interesting ' experiences.
I was taking my Raleigh Bomber off-road a lot, but my first proper atb was a 15sp Raleigh Maverick bought in October 1985 and I’ve been addicted ever since.
Another ghastly Peugeot thing here. Must have been 92/93. Then I inherited my Dads Diamond Back Apex....It was the greatest bike in the world in my opinion. Onza Stubbies, brake lever grips, pink Avenir computer and Shocktech elastomer forks.
Kona Explosif, some time in 1989. It was about six months old at the time so it's an '88. I was training and racing sled dogs and wanted something to keep me fit during the off-season. I think it cost me £250.
Bought my first in 88/89, an MBK Aventure in a 3 flouro colour fade, got me in to it massively and then went through a bike a year for the next four, MS Racing CompLX (i think), proper splatter Cinder Cone, then from the frame up a Zaskar LE (original one with a U brake) built with Pace hubs with Sachs freewheel, suntour thumbies, Scott AT4 Pro bars before going custom built with a beautiful TIG welded Cromor Fuquay with red USE bars with bar ends, USE seatpost and XT throughout.
1985, Apollo Blizzard – does that count? (I was only 7 so technically I didn’t buy it):
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More realistically, 1995 (I think) Univega Aluminum – so much wrongness but so much right for the period – DCD, huge ControlTech stem, purple bits snowflaked front wheel:
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Spot the upgrades – Judy XLCs and my first set of V-brakes:
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Specialized Rockhopper in 1998. Still use it every day as transport.Also use it for touring. Now got dyno hub lighting and nexus 8 though. I'd never get rid.
Marin Eldridge Grade in 1992, matt black and red/orange. What a great bike that was, lasted for years and many miles, never needed anything replacing
First ATB was a Raleigh Memphis in 1989. High tensile steel, rubbish cantis, some sort of bottom of the range Suntour gears and the typical 1.75" tyres with the raised centre ridge that were no use on any surface. Loved it.
'Upgraded' most of it - Exage cantis, Mountain LX brake levers, Suntour XCD6000 rear mech, Deore II shifters, Tioga Farmer John's Cousin up front and a Specialized Ground Control out back.
Then some thieving charva twunt TWOC'ed it from outside of Hardisty's (top of the Fossway, Byker).
Replaced with a 1990 Raleigh Mirage (the purple one) in the smallest size they did - 20". 300LX throughout. Again, upgraded. XTII and Deore II mostly, M261CD wheels, hand built by Denton Cycles and SPD's - they were a game changer for me.
That was the last full bike bought.
I started drooling (worryingly enough) after a 1985 Raleigh Maverick in the local Raleigh shop window.
It was light blue, 5 years and sidepull brakes.
I finally was able to buy it in 1986 when they reduced it and allowed part ex of my BMX.
I loved it. Long, low and slack geometry (now where have I heard that?).
Although, as I have said before, the steel rims and sidepull brakes did make wet weather braking feel like an option box i hadn't ticked. The centre ridgr tyres were awful too.
I bought a Muddyfox Courier in Sept 1987. I wanted a Rockhopper but it was too expensive. The MF had to do. It was probably crap but I loved it. I felt like it had been designed exactly for me to ride where I had always tried to ride on touring or road bikes.
1989 Saracen Tufftrax.
My 74 year old Dad still rides it occasionally.
1989 Raleigh Blueridge
Blue & orange frame.
Bought it from a pal of a pal, £200 bargain.
1993 diamond back Sorrento (I think that's what it was called)
1995 orange C16r STX-RC groupo
1997 orange X2 (frame only build)
2013 Ghost ASX plus (frame only build)
2016 Transition Suppressor (frame only build)
I bought a Specialized rockhopper in 1986 but frame was too big, 6 speed thumbshifters non index,
OP, I nearly bought the blue one too in 86 but then got a grip on myself and went for red 🙂
As I remember it though it was only 5 speed and those thumb shifters got painful to use after a long day riding. I also recall that the bars themselves weighed as much as a modern frame! 2 years later all the bits went on to a Roberts White Spider frame, back in the day when you could transfer all the bits from one frame to another without thinking about standards 🙂
For some reason I still seem to have the original cantilever brakes and the seat clamp in a box.
A blue Raleigh Marauder for Xmas '89, iirc. It lasted a long while, seeing as it was too big when I got it, so the next was a Balance AL150 in about '95. It was certainly rubbish even by standards back then, but it did everything I wanted a bike to do at the time.