I remember it very clearly.

1987 up Short Bank Road in Skipton.

Rented a Raleigh Mustang which looked like this:

Went over the bars and taco’d the wheel, which the bike shop owner wasn’t too happy about, but I was totally sold!

He forgave me when I bought a Saracen Tufftrax off him a month later after selling my Peugeot Premier road bike!

I believe the chap still hangs about at Dave Ferguson’s place (who used to mechanic for him), unfortunately can’t remember his name – used to ride a tandem with his wife and they ran a MTB club out of the Skipton Bike shop for a while).

I remember riding down a trail thinking “I’m a natural, nobody could get over ground like this any faster” then 2 blokes (chatting and laughing) flying past me like I was stood still.

As a kid I remember seeing some sort of mountain bike race back in the late 80s during a Sunday family walk and being absolutely captivated by it. Muddy Fox branding was everywhere and the people were riding through actual MUD! Having only ridden a road bike up to that point – this looked so delicious and forbidden.

A few years later I got my own MTB and never looked back.. 🙂

Early eighties I recall riding over the pentlands on a 3 speed Sturmer archered no braked monstrosity cobbled together from scavenged bike bits. 1982 I ruptured my spleen doing dirt jumps badly on a pals grifter, thus began a long history of regular a&e attendance. First ‘real’ mtb was a 91 Kona.

In 1989 I was doing a lot of sled dog racing and wanted something to keep me fit in the off-season (summer) when it was too warm to get any serious dog miles in. Coming from a m/cycle trials background, I thought that mountain bikes seemed a good idea, so I bought a few months old Kona Explosif, which I still have and sometimes ride. Then I thought that racing was the way to go and that’s how it all starts, I suppose.
At 37, I should have been old enough to know better but at 63 I’m still riding…….

Prob back in the very early 80’s i guess?, No such thing as as a generic mtb so we used to ride whatever bikes we had or could cobble together along the forest roads and up the hill paths (Argyll, we stayed near Castle Sween, Crinan and Dalavich) my fav was my puch 5 spd racer with wide handlebars and shite calliper brakes that i got for my 10 birthday in 82, unfortunately the wheels were constantly bucking and the tyres were not up to much but we didn’t know any different – I remember always carrying a few cotter pins and an adjustable spanner as i kept breaking the pins.

i bought my first proper mtb in 1986 from a bike shop in Oban with money i made from firewood/kindling that i cut & supplied to all 36 houses in Dalavich as every house had a rayburn for heating/hot water (middle of nowhere) – It was a pristine white muddy fox explorer and if i remember correctly it cost £360 ish, utterly-utterly brilliant machine that saw me heading off for multi day long cycle/exploring trips around Loch Awe and into the hills. No helmets obviously and i/we carried very little in the way of spares but we always seemed to get by without major problems.

I’ll have to see if my folks have any pics from that period, it’d be good to see them again.

1991.
January.
Rooley Moor Road from Blackley, via Rochdale Canal.
Brand new British Eagle 531.
Rain & snow.
Thin roadie jacket over Arran jumper.
Shorts and KSB’s.
Bobble hat.
Oh, huge yellow cape (!??) under the seat.
🙂

Gaz went blue at Castleton on the way back and had to be towed home.

Frame turned out to be bent, (not me!) bought a Marin with the refund and gave up hiking for quite a while.
Jacked in road cycling and motocycling for a while a few years later too.
🙂

My first “ATB” will of been about 88/89, more just dicking about in the woods really.

92/93 saw me save a lot of pocket money and get a British Eagle ZFX 2, and heading up to Whinlatter to ride the fire roads and foot paths. I was hooked.

I was forty year’s old and a joiner I was working with on a job in Northallerton talked me into buying a bike so I could join him and his mate’s on their weekly Thur night bike ride. One specialized hard rock later and with minimal preparation I joined them for a loop around Richmond starting in Brompton on Swale. Twenty two miles later we finally got back to the van’s. I was exausted and cramping badly but I was hooked. Can’t get enough now.

1984 on an Overburys Fellrider round Stock hill woods near Priddy .We had been to a bike show and borrowed one from them for the weekend .My mate bought one .I bought the frame from him and still have it

Early 2000s. Some mates from a car club were going biking in dumfries and wanted me to come and another had just bought a hardrock sport to cycle to work so it was peer pressure. . I decided to take the plunge and bought a fully rigid specialized hardrock. I think from ebay but not 100%. I rode carron valley then glentress full red. Loved it so much, bought a terrible fork (rst something iirc) and went to dumfries for the weekend with car mates. Ride k tree, mabie and dalbeattie .totally hooked!

I used to ride a ‘tracker’ in the woods in the 70’s. Then after a knee injury stopped my running in the early 90’s the physio suggested bikes again and I got a road bike, but riding on the road was nigh on suicidal, so I got a diamondback Sorrento and rode it on gravel farm tracks. Which incidentally is still enjoyable except I now do it on my CX.

But my first real MTB ride was when I moved to Guildford, and bought a rockhopper from the now defunct Guildford cycles. There was a Surrey hills route in the MBR mag in the shop and I thought I’d take the bike around that for its maiden voyage.

It was only 15 miles, up holmbury, past joldwynds, climb by high ashes and then dropping down wolverns and Simons copse …. which is where the bonk came. I was struggling back up to the tower at glacial speed when a group of Lycra clad whippets came past, took pity, and gave me this tube of acrid tasting thick sticky gel. At the time I was mesmerised by their brightly coloured shoes covered in buckles and velcro straps, and had to have a pair. Which I did, even though I used then with clips and straps for a while before going to spuds.

I can knock out the same ride after work on water alone nowadays, despite being about 20 years older!!

I don’t remember my first taste of “mountain biking” specifically, but it would have been in 1992 that I got properly into riding my Raleigh Mustang (with buckled rear wheel and a Farmer John’s Nephew on rubbing a gret hole in the drive side chainstay) around the trails (if that’s what you could call them) up from Weddington towards Judkins Quarry in Nuneaton. It was riding some cheeky stuff actually in the quarry in ’94 that made me think I was due a better bike though, got me thinking maybe I was alright at this mountain biking thing. I watched two blokes with what looked like serious kit shoulder their bikes for a short but steep climb and thought “Pah! I can do better than that!” and hauled myself and my trusty Raleigh Draken to the top. I decided there and then I was a biking god and that clearly I deserved a better bike. So I bought a GT Timberline that was was waaaay too small cos although I was a “riding god” (think SurfMatt but with glasses, acne and over a foot of seat post showing), I didn’t know shit.

must have been 1990/91 I saved and bought a Diamond Back topanga. it was the grey and pink. I didn’t know anyone else that mountain biked so I used to play in the woods around Temple Newsam in leeds which I lived right next to. East Leeds is a mountain biking desert.

I kept the bike for years only throwing it in the tip in a rage after it was stripped in the work bike sheds. whilst I was in hosital with cellulitus after a OTB incident road riding.

I wish I’d kept it it was the perfect pub/tow path bike much less twitchy. than the Marin from a similar time I’m using now.

coorrr on the road then out into country isn’t it mmmmmm, rigid forks cromo frame wasn’t it….marvellous. The enduring smell of loam, unexpected erections, wasn’t it isn’t it, spokey dokeys, coke can grinding on the tyre, skid competitions mmmmmmmmm.

cooorrr Raleigh, Falcon, Townscend, Muddy Fox you knew where you were then no rebound or compression. John Tomac, Ned Overend small boys steel bikes, 15 gears, SIS, tyre burning, an enduring imagine wasn’t it mmmmmmm. Marks late for tea, Jimmy’s sh1t his pants, a far cry from small boys, todays 29er 650b + size nonsense, mmmmmmm, 1990 marvellous, singlespeed 1×11 1×10 1×9 2×9 3×9 3×10 2×10 3×8 135 142 have we failed the youth, is life worth living, are we destined to become hollowed out relics in an ancient woodland……………..

holy hell…

…August bank holiday, 2003. I was 29, extremely fit and up for a new challenge. A few friends dragged me away to the Peaks. Now they were on new fangled Specialized Enduro full sussers, but one chap loaned me his spare bike – a Saracen Havoc (stop sniggering). Blimey…I couldn’t work out why I was so slow. And knackered.

But I loved every second. The physical challenge was matched by the mental demands to pick a line, to use my body weight to change the bike’s attitude. A few weeks later I bought a Rockhopper, later some Hope Minis to fit to the same…then, four months later a Spesh Enduro of my own and I was hooked.

Twelve years and a shedload of money later, I have three bikes – 26er steel hardtail, 26 xc full suss and a 29er enduro machine. I bloody love it.

I’m relatively new to all this. I rode off road a bit on my “racer” as a kid, but it wasn’t until 2006 that I got a mountain bike. First outing was at High Lodge in Thetford forest. Giant XTC SX. An absolute gate, but it got me hooked.

Raleigh Mantis round Runnymede in about 1994…

GB

Think my first proper one would have been either a Mtb Britain forum ride at Wharncliffe or at the long Mynd. Was hideously unfit and slow but loved it!

Early 2000s for me. Got fat, bought a rigid Raleigh bike, got fitter, took it to Centre Parcs and did the “mountain bike session”.

Really enjoyed it, bought a much better bike and been riding ever since.

I was a London cycle courier in ’87 so was ‘urban mountain biking’ – up kerbs, down flights of steps, off of the Red Star platforms- accidenty, over the odd pedestrian… all done on a cheapo far east bike called a Magnum. All steel, really heavy. Then got a Muddy Fox Courier (got nicked), a Spesh, I think, it was blue and white (got nicked) and then a nice Cannondale (got nicked). Rode all of these in the South Downs, Hampstead + Barnet Woods at the weekends. Cycle all week, then at the weekend to… those were the days. I had the Magnum for about 10 years – even the least discerning thief refused that one. Finally got nicked when I left it in a sports shop in Royal Oak.

Had BMX’s as a kid in the 80’s and used to rag them around the local woods, Beaumont Leys, Leicester! Then a couple of lads got Raleigh Lizard and mustangs, and i wanted one!
I got a Townsend bag ‘o’ shite, that got nicked about a fornight later! I then moved to Halifax when i was 16 and didn’t have another bike until I was got home from travelling when I was 22! All that time missing out on Calderdale gnarlyness, I had no idea!! Strangely i got my next bike when I moved back to Leicester (biking is shit in Leicester!!) then moved to Leeds in 2000 and started riding off road again…..