I was soooooooo ahead of the game. Dura Ace Octalink BB, Coda Expert cranks, TA Specialite rings. BOOM Take that fashion!!

Pfffftttttt I was 1×8 in 2002, with a chain device.

I was significatly fitter though.

1×8 is pretty ambitious

In ’01 I was rocking 1×7. I was poor but wanted to look cool….

used to do my paperround on a 1 x 8 marin b17 – race Downhill sunday , change the tires sunday night – back on the paperround on monday.

photos of that bike still taped to inside of lid of my toolbox.

1×8 is pretty ambitious

It was a 38t single ring to an 11-28 too! Like I said, significantly fitter!

It was on a DMR trailstar, with 130mm forks, and DH tyres.

Somehow I used to keep up with the local Xc group rides (which mostly consisted of lost roadies!).

2×8 back around ’95 here. Mostly used on the Plain, so there wasn’t any real need for the granny ring.

Also, in the summer, I was rocking (as de yoot dem say) these;

Fast as a very, very fast thing. Never, and I repeat NEVER take them out in anything even vaguely moist. If a gnat has just sneezed, change them.

Ritchey did a 2×9 system back in the late 1990s 8 speed era. They used their own gripshift front shifter, and added a larger cog to a standard 8 speed cassette. See pages 4-5 of the 1997 Ritchey Catalog.

I was rocking 2×7 in this photo in MBUK in 1991:

I remember this arguably sad fact because I tried a Stronglight 2x cyclocross crankset for a short while. This short while happened to include a DH race at Beedlegert, which was basically just a fireroad all the way down and my tiny top gear was totally useless and I was waaay down the field. Oh well….least I got in MBUK. I bent the cranks shortly after and that was the end of that experiment for around 15 years.

My 1998 XC bike – 17″ Chameleon, 710mm Azonic bars, 60mm stem, Z1 110mm, big Kujo DH tyres on D521s, 1×8 with a 34T chainring. Long seatpost. Used for the jumps at the local 4x track, DH runs and long XC rides. Not much new in today’s hardcore hardtails ) well apart from discs.. After doing more XC than jumps, having to walk a few climbs etc it had 22-34 with a bash ring.
Walleater, top retro pic!

Hoops, I’ll join you there! Cannondale f800 with Middleburn cranks 2×8 then my Saracen killi flier 2×8.

Cannondale – 1997-2000
Killi – 2000 – now sat cracked in my shed

’twas the way forward!