Im sat here drinking my coffee on the sofa in the workshop and it dawned on me that I can’t remember the exact day let alone year that it all changed for me from having a low end mountain bike and going over the woods with mates mucking about on jumps and sitting around just creaming over posh bikes in mbuk (single track wasn’t out at this point) content my bike was more than good enough for the job and only needed cheap deore or lx if feeling saucy replacements too not evening contemplating or even thinking about cost as I walking into the bike shop where I used to work to order another XTR chain and cassette or other top end part as I had too have it it’ll make me faster better more radcore. I know it happened in my late teens but can’t remeber the day or year it happened when I changed into “mister must have” other “that’ll do it isn’t broken”.

Anyone remeber there transition? Or avoided it?

Once I started work in my LBS and got access to cheap stuff, sold my Tufftrax for a Rockhopper Comp.

Gave up on high end quite a few years ago, too many other things to spend my (limited) money on.

It was a Tuesday I think.

It was when I decided to build my own bike up (on-one 456) as a way of getting back into biking.

It got more expensive when I started racing!

1989, but don’t recall the exact day. I just remember it was when perusing the freewheel catalogue in my 1st yr uni halls room.

had to make do with 105 equipped 531c road bike for a while longer, even though we got student grants back then, rather than loans.

Bought my first MTB in 1989 for 274 quids. Reynolds 500 with Exage groupset, Biopace rings, Araya rims. Didn’t feel cheap at the time although was lower mid-range.

*Edit – historic inflation calculator tells me that today I would pay £656.86

So there is an answer. I do remember riding it for about 7 years without replacing hardly a brake pad – it just kept going through all manner of abuse, even threw it down a hillside in a fit of rage one day and it bounced back unscathed looking for more, like the maniacal masochist that it was. I think we are definitely more vain and prissy these days after decades of upgrade-itis and fashionable advertising/consumer culture. Oh no, a scratch! Helitape, helitape, protect my investmeeeent!

we all know who’s fault it is

1989 sounds about right. It was long after that time that someone I knew bought some canondale full sus thing for 2.5k and that was serious money then, he could of bought a car for that.

sorry but always been expensive pre 89 and post 89……………

I have totally avoided it.

More by accident though as I am still riding rigid single speed after at least 10 years doing so.

Once you get the frame and wheels you like there really isn’t much else to spend any money on…

The best that 1992 had to offer was about 900quid on a spec rockhopper pro. Thats 1725 in todays money. Well if you dropped 1700 on a hardtail today you would get something pretty fricken awesome, hydraulic brakes, maybe a dropper, defo a decent fork. The expensive stuff is way way more techincally advanced, but even for the equivalent money todays £1700 hardtail is legions better that 1992’s rigid.

You can easily spend £750 and get an amazing hardtail that will last you a very very long time.

It’s always been as expensive as you want to make it.

I remember the gawp I got from my cousin when I said I’d spent £300 on a pair of Rock Shox Mag21 with special order 1.25 ahead steerer! By that comparison my latest Rock Shox Reba RL 15mm tapered for £280 are a good price.

I don’t think that the first MTB frames Tom Ritchey and the like started knocking out were any cheaper than a custom steel build today.

You pays your money and takes your choices.

The day my crap full-sus was nicked. The list price of the replacement was comically high and the insurance offered me a deal on the last years Rockhopper with hydraulic discs for a cost of about £150. I cashed in my paper round savings and I felt like a king. A few days later my best mate got a Caldera with some Bombers and then I had to have a set.

A few years past and I went back to cheap and simple with a couple of retro builds and I had a lot of fun with no worries. Now here I am trying to destroy my bank balance building up a carbon 650b enduro weapon and buying 70 quid headsets.

Aged 16 in summer 1993 when I bought an Orange Clockwork frame to hang the bits from my old Raleigh Mirage on.

Of course, an Orange of that vintage wasn’t an Orange without Pace RC35s…

and Mavic 231s on XT hubs…

and XT mechs…

and Onza cantis (and then Magura hydraulics)…

and Middleburn cranks…

and Pace rings…

and USE bars and seatpost…

and Onza barends…

and Flite Ti saddle…

and XT SPDs…

Insurance replacement value at the time was £1600 IIRC which is about £3000 now. 75% what my current MTB cost, so not a million miles away. The tipping point was getting a Saturday job and actually have my own money to spend on the bike. So I did.

I was thinking the same on a 3 hour ride earlier. I remember hitting trails in the US in the 70s and they were pretty simple bikes. I was wondering on a long hill climb when did front suspension come in?

Looking at the DH bikes at the top of Gibbet Hill, there was serious wedge there!

It was just a few years ago for me when suddenly bikes and especially components seemed to get about 30-40% more expensive (something to do with the exchange rate with the yen)? Suddenly things like an XT rear mech at RRP in your LBS seemed to cost a ludicrous amount of money.

But you can mostly avoid it if you’re careful. Even replacing broken bits you can get good deals or buy s/h.

Some bikes now aren’t cheap, but are still actually really good value for what you get. YT, Canyon etc.

When I joined a company that did CTW, and found out that my mate who ran a shop took the vouchers & allowed top ups 😀

I think I have more fun on my £700 lurcher than any more expensive fancy full suss bike I’ve owned. Sure it isn’t as capable downhill but a simple, light hardtail is a joy to just ride anywhere.

i remember walking into edinburgh bicycle co-op in 1988 as a teenager and seeing a cannonade sm1000. the label on the handlebars stated ‘simply the best mountain bike in the world’. full xt, nitto stem, u brake on the seat stay with a shark tooth sticking up, araya rm-25s, irc 1.75 tyres, and extra long hight-rite! and it was £1000!

little did i know barely a few months later on christmas morning, id be standing crying in my parents living room as fondled my very own sm1000. the previous years ridgeback 601sis was to see how serious i was about this new mountain biking thing. even managed to quickly can the mudguards my dad had specced. my folks were certainly not rich but decided i’d merited an extra special christmas. to which I’m forever grateful. I’ve had had four bike since and only one has worked out cheaper that that ‘dale.

for me, mountain biking continues to be an expensive pursuit but, its that important to me, its worth every single penny. the jones (that took me 4 years to pay for) is the single most expensive thing I’ve bought (i don’t drive) but every ride, I’m reminded how amazing this past time is, the healthy aspect is just one of many many benefits.

a friend said to me at the weekend – ‘you are so lucky to have found something you love so much’

Very gradual for me- when I got back into riding I bought a used carrera for £200 and that felt like a lot. Put a set of Toras from the famous CRC flood sale on it for £80 and that felt like a lot too.

Worth every penny, for me, though.

MTB has always been relatively expensive for me, since the start. It took months of saving in a very poorly paid Saturday job to buy a £220 Diamond Back Topanga. When I earned more, my tastes got more expensive. My zenith was probably the 4 grand of GT LTS DH I custom built back in 97.

However, I’ve grown out of such things now, at least to a certain extent! My last frame was an Inbred, and I’m currently looking at a full-build tourer for under a grand. My last full-build was a second hand Kona Hahanna for which I paid £150, that was in about 2007…

It was shortly after I’d been made redundant and had spent my days riding my bike, rather than looking for work. I had worn my canti pads down in about a fortnight and realised that, due to the cost of replacing them with decent pads, either I could spend my redundancy pay-out on brake pads or I needed to stop using the brakes. I became quicker overnight….

I can trace the crazy pricing all the way back to one brand becoming popular… Enve. Before they came along (under the name Edge) nobody would dream of spending over £2k on a pair of wheels, but once they started becoming popular, it’s like the industry decided that the general public will pay anything for the best! Now of course you can buy off-the-shelf bikes from Santa Cruz, Cannondale etc with these wheels that are insane money! Once XTR Di2 becomes more popular, I imagine another jump forward :/

For me it would have been about 1994ish, id arranged to meet a guy who rode at the same spot as us when we got talking in a bike shop. I turned up on my pride and joy, a £240 Muddy fox comp my first bike id ever bought from brand new.
The guy i had arranged to meet turned up on a Pace hardtail with mavic ceramics magura brakes syncros stem and seat post etc etc…which he kindly let me have a go on as at that time it was pretty much my dream bike. The next ten or so years after that my bikes were usually worth more than my car.

2009ish, when events conspired to almost double Shimano prices overnight

Always offered very good value to me since the 80s. You can pay what you like, it’s a free consumerist market, but value is there if you want it.

For me, the day that my LBS persuaded me to go for a pair of Judys rather than the Quadra 21 I had gone in to buy.

I don’t think Chain reaction were around when I got into biking, but they appeared pretty soon after. And I discovered I could buy loads of red ano bits for my Kona. (which I ended up hating). Pretty soon I was looking at CRC every single day for crap I didn’t need, as long as I could get it cheap, I’d take it. . After a few years, even that wasn’t enough. I was scouring EBay, and even skulking around dodgy German sites. After a couple of years and one or two payrises, suddenly the cheap shit wasn’t enough. I started taking XTR.

I remember spending £350 in 1987 on a Marin Bear Valley, was cheap at the time compared to what we were spending on windsurfing at that time

August 1997 ,I walked into leisure lakes and bought a kona manomano frame for £700 .for the previous 8 years I’d just bought 2nd hand and swapped bits with mates .im now trying to relive my youth via Retrobike to get those bikes I always wanted when i was a student in the early 90’s .at present I have 2 1991 Orange clockworks a 1998 orange clockwork a 1993 raleigh apex ( all original spec show room condition) and a 1995 orange p7 as well as a couple of cannondale frames and a giant cadex in the loft .( dan it is I nobbythesheep of Rb)

My view is very rose tinted I’m sure if I had the money when I was young I’d have brought a bit more but when I started riding xc/trail riding I was happy with low end and could see no reason to buy the better stuff and I was happy and too be fair it was smiles more than miles. Then I started spending more and more almost over night and training and more training and worrying about weight and other 1st world riding problems and winning races at all costs.

Thank god I got out of that mind set a few years and now it’s about longevity and enjoyment again rather than race times and weights and latest industry bull.

I just wish I could go back and warn that teenage me about weight save could mean failure while racing and just because it’s new and expensive it won’t make you quicker lol as well as the ex’s!!!!!

I remember a jump up in prices in 2009 as well

Nobby!!!! Lol get on your fat bike and ride you don’t have time to post mayhems soon dude

It’s still relatively cheap fun for me, just buy everything apart from consumables second hand and it works out fine. Compared to the amount of money I waste on alcohol, it’s pretty good value!

Same here, we buy good used stuff like frames and forks for £notverymuchcomparedtonew or look out for good offers on last year’s new unsold stuff. We’re not fussed about the newest, badgest, lightest stuff at all but we do like nice stuff on our bikes. We’ll only (generally) replace stuff when it breaks or wears out.

Yes, 2009 too

I spy Cosmic Trail!

Right from the start IMO.

The day my crap full-sus was nicked. The list price of the replacement was comically high and the insurance offered me a deal on the last years Rockhopper with hydraulic discs for a cost of about £150. I cashed in my paper round savings and I felt like a king. A few days later my best mate got a Caldera with some Bombers and then I had to have a set.

A few years past and I went back to cheap and simple with a couple of retro builds and I had a lot of fun with no worries. Now here I am trying to destroy my bank balance building up a carbon 650b enduro weapon and buying 70 quid headsets.

Very similar story. Some years ago a ‘blind’ truck driver ran over my Coyote mtb equipped with full deore, avid rim brakes, and rs darts. £400 check from Aviva has changed my life. I’ve built my first bike and now (some years later) I’m happy owner of full carbon XC rocket… 🙂