A friend sent me some pics from a ride that’s still fresh in my memory. A West Highland Way in a Day ride. The year? 1987. I can hardly believe that’s 29 years ago.

We had just descended the Devil’s Staircase with just the stretch from Mamore Lodge to Fort William to complete. Our only worry is that the sun is going down and we have no lights.

Post up a retro pic and a few words.

oh crikey!
I think I *just* had an MTB in 1987. Do I still have any group pics featuring it around Scotland? not at all sure.. @donald to the forum..

’87? i was 15 !!!

Great vintage pic that.

29! Not funny
And just how crap were those brakes 🙂

Is that you in the sexy shorty shorts?

That looks suspiciously like gruntfuttock in 2016. I’m going with MCM being the suave gent on the left.

You’re in luck kcal.

I don’t have any.

Woah, now I’ve torn my eyes away from Mr Shorty Shorts is that a pink bike with yellow bull moose bars and rack or a red bike made to look like a fire engine?

But if I did….

Pink bike in all it’s glory

Memorable for the ugliest helmets that everyone had and those Suntour shifters

The guy in the shorts is Mike Earrey, he was in his forties then. Great guy, he’d pour over maps, give us a phone of a Friday night with a plan for the Sunday. Sometimes they were magical, sometimes they were shite. They were always memorable. He now kayaks off Ardnamurchan, he may be confusing it with the Tay.

That’s me on the left. My bike was the first Rockhopper in Scotland. Far too big, wasn’t everyone’s first bike? I used it a lot, after a couple of years I got it resprayed. Bullmoose bars were great, motorcycle brake levers were huge to compensate for crap cantilevers. Bolt on hubs, QRs were still considered too weak. I think the following year we shed the mudguards and rack.

Dan, the tall bloke on the right also took up Kayaking after his partner’s father was killed cycling. A maths professor from Edinburgh was hit by a bus. He and Karen made some epic sea kayaking trips and surving near disaster somewhere off Tasmania. They now live in North Queensferry, a town with no chip shop, so they paddle across the Forth with their kids to the chippy in South Queensferry.

The guy on the right was Scott Page, he raced well as a junior for Scotland on the road. I toured over the Alps with him. Race fit he climbed the socks off Dutch and Belgian racers with panniers, saddle and bar bags. Top guy, lost touch with him, last I heard he was working in interior and furniture design down in Brighton.

EDIT Top find Rik! I cant remember the manufacturer of those brake levers. Might have been Tomaselli, maybe Magura.

nope, none of those were mine. *far* more colourful and tasteful (*)

Did Mr McShorts speak with a squeaky voice, due to constriction from the shorts?

which coincidentally also dates from…

My friend Neil (doing a lot of good work these days through a community cycling project) riding through the Necropolis on his Muddy Fox Courier.
Downhilling through a couple of feet of snow in a cemetery on that bike was my first experience of mountainbiking.

Brilliant pic MC!

Is the second print at the Briggait, kcr? 🙂

This thread is going to be amazing 🙂

In 1987 I would just be out of newborn nappies.

Interesting pic. I did a “Tour of Ben Nevis” back in about 1991 with my brother, I was riding my full-rigid Rockhopper and he was on something like a Ridgeback, it was a lurid purple colour. The ride was absolutely exhausting; we were inexperienced cyclists and we suffered the heat and the mud-fest then the huge rocks on the shooting tracks. Eventually we reached Mamore Lodge where we drank two pints of shandy each and a large pot of tea with cakes then fell asleep in the sun on the lawn in front of the lodge. When we woke up we had a big climb to do and it was terrible on cold legs. We knew nothing about nutrition and drinking. We eventually reached tarmac and jumped in the burn to cool off before riding back to Fort Bill. Epic.

Muddy Fox for me in 86. First MTB and frame was way to big (as you said). Amazing days when I look back, for some reason it always seemed to be sunny but I’m sure it was not.

got a load of pics from over the years. the earliest 1985 i think. i was 19 on a muddy fox explorer.

Pete, some cracking sweary northerners pictures from over the years. lots of Ron Hill and dayglo Calange going on. Noggin with hair and teeth.

how do i get em on here? the pictures that is.

Brilliant!

i think i bought my first copy of MBUK in 1987 and soon after bought a far too big halfords apollo “ATB” with 18 gears! i was too vain to buy a helmet though but did have a GT all terra jersey.the ron hills under lycra shorts for winter was probably a mistake though. those were the days, i can’t say my riding technique has improved since then but i am 3 stone lighter 🙂

My retro is not quite as retro as mcmoonter, though mainly because I was only 5 in 1986 so not quite at an age of WHW epics.
This photo did pop up recently, it was my first XC race, SCU at Inners in 1995 or 96 so 20 years old. My first proper MTB, prior to that I’d had a couple of hybrids that I’d pimped with bigger tyres.

30 years ago this month for me.

Raleigh Maverick. I’ve said it before but the 5 speed wasn’t a problem down sarf but the steel rims and side pull brake combo felt like braking was an option I’d forgotten to tick!

I was only 5 in 1986 so not quite at an age of WHW epics. This photo did pop up recently…in 1995 or 96 so 20 years old.

Aye, maths were different back in them days 🙂

Only pic I have access to! I’d say this is about 1970, me and my older bruv wearing shorter shorts than McMoonter could dream of. Wasn’t quite so hilly in Leigh Park though…

Just noticed our mirrored single brake lever set up. Weird!

Aye, maths were different back in them days

I’m not sure I follow??
I mean the photo is 20 years old, not me, that would clearly make no sense if I was only 5 in 1986.

I would have been riding my minty green Raleigh Montage in ’88.
I swapped it for my Prolite ‘Craig Campbell’ signature BMX, which involved seeing the ad in the back pages of, I think, BMX Action Bike, phoning the guy up & then catching the train to Deale in Kent…at the time I lived in Dawlish, Devon so
it was a long day!
When I got there, the lad’s Mum wasn’t too happy about him swapping his brand new mountain bike for my old BMX, but after much pleading from him & my offer of some Redline flite cranks to go with the BMX, she agreed.
The one caveat was that they keep the middle & outer chainrings until they’d received the cranks, meaning for the first couple of weeks I went everywhere in the biopace granny ring!
Not sure I have pics that far back, in fact I don’t have pics of many of my bikes, which is something I’ve always regretted.
Very happy days.

I mean the photo is 20 years old, not me, that would clearly make no sense if I was only 5 in 1986.

Oh, I see. Coming after the previous sentence, I read it as you were 20 years old, not the photo was taken 20 years ago. Doh. Sorry.

Me & my bros circa 1970. Sitting on the handlebars was about as rad as it got.

I’m sure the weather was terrible most of the time but in my memories it was always like this:

https://postimg.org/image/okoqkq5l5/
and this

https://postimg.org/image/4bsoqf1cz/

I can’t be sure of the year but probably 86/7 as that was a saracen conquest with the original forks before they snapped as they all seemed to do 🙁

Leffeboy sent me this earlier.

Leffeboy, CynicAl and Italspark have been riding together since we met/worked at Williamson’s Bike Shop in Edinburgh’s Stockbridge back in the early eighties. Life changing encounters.

yes but where was it? you are memory meister

@ Leffeboy, Loch Pattack, near Dalwhinnie

Starter for ten – name the big hitter?

Tenacious_doug, what size wheels were you riding back in the day? 26 inch or are you a giant?

One last spot the big hitter clue

Only because I’ve got it on Photobucket; note the Girvin Flexstem!