In 1990 I had a black Yeti FRO with Accutrax forks, full XTR and Syncros finishing kit. Loved it to bits, and could kick myself for getting rid.
Sub5, ragging down a big rocky lakeland pass or Scottish hill, leaning back and feeling 5" of luverly travel....
Kinesis Maxlight XC with a Marathon S fork and Rolf Wheels. Light, fast, smart and as gnarly as I needed. 🙂
Coyote F2 blasting down the alps. I dismantled it due to wanting to try an NRS for lightness/XC use but by god I loved the plushness of the travel and the actual feel of the bike handling wise.
Cannondale F500.
A year of exploration all over the country and the discovery of the joy of mtb.
An old Kona Fire Mountain! Had it when I was 10/12 ish - it was in that lovely bright blue colour, and had a pair of elastomer RST which later became RS Judy's!! They cost me a fortune at the time.
Did the Borders, Hellvellyn (at the tender age of 12), load of riding round the Lakes and Swaledale. Still got it! Think I'll strip it down and keep the frame.
1989 Townsend "somethingorother" the first MTB I could afford and we went everywhere together.
(would post a pic but the clothes I wore at the time were frighteningly fluorescent)
Oh just remembered a purple raleigh chopper when I was about 10 or 11 - seventiestastic !
raleigh bluebird 'pon which I learnt to ride in my grandma's back garden
:o)
Cotic soul 🙁 sold to try out fs, now gone back to budgeted ht.
1990 kona explosif. i was fit, 16, rode every day, not a care in the world.
cotic soul now which is the best since then.
my current hardtail 🙂
not 100% sure if it couldnt be improved, i'm tempted to get a 456 and short stem, jsut to try out a longer wheelbase with the same reach. But I always seem to gravitate towards shorter bikes with 90mm stems, so maybe not.
This one!! Ok so i was only about 8 at the time but i was soooo excited - i broke my Raleigh Apple girlie bike by doing too many stunts on it 🙂
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95 Kona Kileaua. Did everything on it xc, enduro, 6hr, 12 hr, 24hr, duathlon, tri, time trial, commute, child seat on it, SSed it. Loved it.
[url= http://pompinos.blogspot.com/ ]On tour with the pompinos[/url]
you've all seen it enough times 🙂
I still love my pomp. Treating it to some new On-One gold track hubs and Open Sport rimmed wheels this weekend.
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A GT bmx with 16" wheels, stunt pegs and a coaster brake. I could bunny hop that thing about two feet.
A 1978 Orange Eddy Merx 5 speed racer, replaced the drops with cow-horns and went over Hainault forest and tried to miss the trees.....no pics unfortunately
Linda Chan. Gawd she was dirty.
a fisher hookooekoo in 92/3, woodbury common daily and a lovely girl who i sadly lost contact with years ago.
My gold '91 Cinder Cone, like this one:
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Wish I hadn't got rid.
Zaskar LE year 2000 i liked it that much it's still up the ATTIC 😀
1982 lazer custom racer, I was about 8 or 9 and could ride everywhere no handed
Raleigh chopper for me!
Wasn't XTR released in 1992? The reason I remember is in 1990 I had a Team Marin when everyone's top of the range bike was Tange Prestige and an XT groupset. That was a great bike. Neon pink forks bars and stem, matt grey scratchproof frame. I don't think I did any homework that year. Sold it to fund a Funk with Rockshox. Wish I'd found some way of keeping it now. It's the last steel mountain bike i rode.
My '91 Giant Coldrock. Went riding around the lakes with Lister when we were just bairns. Later on (when some of us could drive) we pushed up Helvelyn via Glenridding and slid down the other side over Dollywaggon Pike.
Have very fond memories of blasting down Deadwater Fell and around Chopwell woods, again with Lister and the rest of team Zebin. Still got the frame/forks. I think it may have seen service at the Malverns in '93. Great fun but what a complete gate compared to modern bikes.
blue Raleigh Grifter twist grip gear change and all, went every where on it when i was a kid broke the forks at the stem in the end doing to many wheelies.
The one that got stolen first time out 😥
it was a 2001 rockhopper which got my back into riding after a few years of student type life, I lost 4 and a half stones quit smoking and have not looked back since. I rode thousands of miles on that bike and did Lands End to John o Groats on it too. Cracked at the head tube about a year ago and went to the tip... like losing a friend!
My old Kona Stinky. Broke it down and sold it to fund a new build. Wish I could've afforded to keep it.
Raleigh Boxer, the original hardcore hardtail.
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So much so that I have a loose plan to spray/sticker up my 456 as one.
My first MTB was an al-carter timbertrail IIRC, I have the steel frame in the garage still with the original BB and quill stem. Been considering rebuilding it but I reckon it'd be like meeting your idol.
Possibly my 1990 Team Marin, it got nicked along with my Proflex 752? .
Replaced it my Pace RC100.
My Ti Kona Hei Hei - I sold it on here, but wish I hadn't
If the person who bought it off me (car park just outside Leamington Spa) still lurks - can I buy it back?
my old woodrup fixie - god i loved that bike- till some tealeaf took it away 😥
My 1994 Kona Fire Mountain, I save up for 18 months when I was 14 to buy that bike! I have taken it to Morzine and ridden World Cup DH courses, I have been Welsh MTB and cyclo x champion on it, it reminds me of my youth ... and I still have it now .. not sure how much longer it's going to last though!!
My green Raleigh Strika....I took it off some sweet jumps....!
I don't know, it feels like someone has just asked me which of my children is my favourite.
1965 Andre Bertin. I built it up with wide steel rims and the fattest tyres I could find and used it like a mountain bike. The local bike club types wouldn't talk to me.
It introduced me to the benefits of single speeding when its lightweight nylon bodied Simplex deraileur snapped on a steep hill.
Rode it all over the highlands and even ventured into the deep south when I rode down to see a girlfriend in So'ton.
a stumpjumper i had when i was 16, one of best bikes i had , sold frame to my brothers m8 for 50 bucks, tried years later to buy back for more, he wouldnt have it, guy died couple years ago, still havent tracked down where it is, maybe one day ?
it sucks where we lose nice bikes to fund new ones, i dont have any regrets in my personal life, not a word i like using, but........ a lot of bikes i now regret parting with, woul love it if they were all in my garage...............................................................
Raleigh Strika, it went through all kinds of hell with me on it when i was about 5, even took it off some sweet jumps (2 bricks and a plank)
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some sweet jumps (2 bricks and a plank)
*High fives Strika jumping buddy!*
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[/img]My Pace RC200, still own today 12 years on. Just can't bring myself to sell.
my torker 280 xl
A trek 970(i think) one of the first sipment of treks into the country- wish i stil had that. Mate of mine still commute on a RC200, pace hubs 'n everything!!
When I was a toddler, I had a little 3-wheeler; a cheap thing from Woolies, all me mum could afford at the time.
Apparently, before I could actually ride the thing, I would sit on it, beaming, proudly exclaiming 'Bike!'.
And the £3 second hand thing, that I first learnt to ride a 'proper' bike on. That moment, when me dad let go, and I was really riding a bike, for the first time. Spose I'll never forget that.
Got to be my Soda. I've got good memories of most of my bikes, but the Soda is the one that I never seem to have a bad ride on. Probably followed by my Soul and my Orange C16.
i borrowed an orange 222 for two weeks in the alps. wheeeee!
My 1990 Kona Explosif - still ride it as a s/s for the moment
my fav. was a village bike when I was 16 😕
Raleigh Chopper mk2. It had magic powers
A '93 GT Talera. my first 'proper MTB'. £350 and I had to pay my Mum back at a fiver a week. It got upgraded with ano purple one piece bar and bar end combo. What was i thinking??
jedi - I had a torker freestyle frame. it lay in an outhouse for a few years waiting for me to restore it but I never got round to it 😳 eventually left it behind when I moved. (hopefuly someone found it and realised what it was)
happiest memories are prob my raleigh chipper.. did my first jumps on that back in 1974/5. after I grew out of it my mum gave it to the local fun fair and they bolted it to a merry-go-round - it was still there until the fair closed down about 10 or so years ago.
but it's a toss up between that and this..
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(from about the same era)
Have equal affection for both my first BMX (at the age of seven) and my first mountain bike (a [i]very[/i] yellow 1990 Marin Muirwoods, as tested in [i]MBUK[/i] by the equally brightly dressed Steve Worland).
Who and where would I be without bicycles? 😯
Not sure about [i]happiest[/i] memory, but one of the clearest is of my, at the time, best mate's racer. I was only a young 'un and it was my first go on such a bike. I wibbled and wobbled all the way down the cul-de-sac he lived in before landing in a heap on his neighbour's garden. It was many years before I plucked up courage to ride a racer 🙁
Well I loved my Raleigh Burner when I got it aged 9 but for the sheer quantity of great memories, it has to be my Kona Kilauea, bought as a frame in 1995 because the new Mag 10s I had bought were too long for my Marin Pine Mountain (91) - It's still going (despite the dropout snapping as that year's Konas all did) having had a couple of repaints and it's been ridden all over the place, in the US, France, Polarises, XC races, touring, jumping, baby carrying, commuting, SS'd - it's basically been there through all the time I've been mtbing and it still rides brilliantly.
In fact, when people talk about bikes having soul (or more specifically about some bikes having no soul), it reminds me that IMO soul is about your experiences with a bike rather than any supposed notions of soul being attained by buying some niche machine from a shack in the mountains in the US where a bearded frame builder builds your one off - any idiot can fork out money for that.
In its current guise - commuter/baby carrier/still offroadable
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My mid-1990's Saracen Killiflyer-something-or-other frameset. It was beautifully fillet brazed prestige in pink/purple colour and built up with a mixture of Magura, Cooks, Syncros, XT and Campag. Lasted me all through my formative years until I stupidly sold it when I was at university. I bought my first Saracen from Halfrauds aged about 10 and spent the following years saving my paperround money and gradually upgrading bits and pieces one-by-one.
either
1 - my old GT avalanche, it was dark grey hard anodized, and very limited. cracked the thing but was allowed to keep it - welded up and converted to single speed then nikced
2 - the zaskar that was the warranty replacement for the avalanche - so tight and fast, great looking, rode so nice with 97 bombers. foolishly swapped the frame for a shite hardcore frame and huskavarna enduro bike with a huge hole in the cast engine. still rue the day that swap too place 🙁
Raleigh Chicco (i think that was the name 😳 )
First bike I had, learned to ride on it - good old - 'two sizes two big so he'll grow into it' sizing - bliddy odd as my dad was a passionate roadie and should therefore have known better.....)
Learnt the art of fettling, had it in pieces and re-sprayed it myself age 12'ish....) no record as to how long i had it but it was a good while before I was able to blag / sulk / cajole my way to my first BMX......
*mind wanders off in Scooby-Doo type dream haze*
the wonders of the web....... [img] http://www.raleighbikes.com/download/file.php?id=42 [/img]
curved TT long before On-One - how hip was I........ 😆
My 1998 Zaskar, sold to my mate on the condition i get first dibs if you want to sell it on. Still rides better than anything else i've tried.
My '95 Cinder Cone - absolutely loved it, until the drop-out snapped and it was replaced by a Pahoehoe under warranty.
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My first 'proper' MTB. Built it up 11 years ago while I was at sixth form from the proceeds of my first actual part time job. Still have it, still love it, still ride it pretty much every week 🙂 Its been through a fair few different guises in that time.