Clearing out a cupboard and found the July 1994 edition .Here’s a taster of what it contained .On the cover a certain Chipps Chippendale riding his custom Greg Fuquay rigid machine .Ritchey Logic Prestige tubing frame retails at £675 !!!!!!! If you wanted matching fork that was another £75 .Inside there is an article by Brant Richards titled Riding the Unridable (spelling natch ! ) he’s explaining how you ride down a near vertical rabbit run .Weapon of choice ?The Pace with the square tubing flat bars and forks with about 2 ins of travel !The secret apparently is to have a stem with a 25 degree rise !
One of the best article’s though was called Run em Rigid !Featuring a certain Steven Peat again written by Brant Richards .It showcases how national level riders can race downhill without any suspension .Mr Peat is pictured on board his fully rigid Kona and sporting Kona team kit .It’s a nostalga fans treat from cover to cover especially the pic of the Axo Pony Winter boots in all their multi neon coloured glory !A snip at £77.99 .What is really odd though are all the ads for companies like Merlin and not a web address in sight !All in all a brilliant read !

The demise of MTB Pro / World was the catalyst which eventually gave birth to Singletrack… that and the demise of Total Bike meaning that one of its staff members was suddenly without any freelance work 😉

MTB Pro was (And I reckon still is) the best mag. I’ve still got a penkinfe with an MTB Pro sticker on it 😀

Can remember that edition with the Fuquay, how do you pronounce it again? 😀 Really fancied one of those, saw Chipps just after racing down at Ashton Gate and IIRC he’d had it converted to SS and a new Roast Chicken crisps packet orange paintjob.

Really liked MTB Pro, still got a route guide book that they were giving away – really miffed that I threw them all out when I moved.

Is that the custom orange fuquay? That’s now hanging in my mates shed gathering dust! I remember some guy in mtb pro riding a proflex with revolutionary prototype brakes, turned out to be xt v brakes.

I think I still have all the MTB Pro’s from Issue 1 right up to the last of MTB World.

I remember getting a dodgy look from the woman behind the counter at Smiths when I bought the issue featuring a naked Jason McRoy on the front cover (naked save for a strategically placed cycle helmet). I must have been about 17-18 at the time, I don’t think she thought it was the sort of mag a teenage boy should be buying…

I still have most of those Pro mags from about edition 5 featuring a Kona Kilauea which I bought and still have. Got all the MTB worlds as well.

Recently retired and planning to read through them when I get some time…

I love the old mags – think I should hopefully have every MBUK from Jan 92 to about 98 in my parents attic.

I even subscribed to them and when it stopped it took ages to get my subscription back from the publishers. Got it back in the end though.

There “masterclass riding tips” were superb

there is a thought for you Chips

There “masterclass riding tips” were superb

there is a thought for you Chips

oops I is repeating myself 😳

DoctorRad – didn’t Mr Kesteven come from the demise of Maximum Mountainbike? I still have a few MTB Pro but my biggest regret is the loss of my MTB Worlds. IMHO THE VERY best mag ever made about mountain biking. The pinnacle for me.

slight thread hijack but does anybody remember the daft stuff they used to do in MBUK. The best that I can remember include an attempt to ride accross the Channel in scuba gear, attaching a parachute to ride uphill and riding downhill with the RAF after being airlifted to the top (and blown over) by a Wessex.

Great times

I can remember that frank, the good old days eh!

I remember when I used to ride in the scottish mountains on a fully rigid diamond back, that weighed 35 pounds, the bikes had water bottles and we carried our kit in a bumbag!

The kids nowadays cant go out down there local woods for a 1 hour ride without carrying the contents of their bike workshop in a rucksack, 3 litres of water and full body armour!

I think that the true definition of a long time/old timer mountain biker, is when they can remember Tim Gould winning the uphill world championship gold.

The best that I can remember include an attempt to ride accross the Channel in scuba gear, attaching a parachute to ride uphill and riding downhill with the RAF after being airlifted to the top (and blown over) by a Wessex.

I think the very first MBUK I bought (aged 15) was the one about riding uphill with a parachute on the front of yuor bike. I thought it was hilarious. They wrote a few articles like that, all genuinely side-splittingly funny. I remember a Wall of Death fairground ride on MTBs too.

MBi used to have some very funny “comment” style articles in it as well, back in the days when it covered pretty much exclusively the XC race scene (although this was the days when (at National Series events) the DH was on the Saturday, XC on the Sunday and people raced both – on the same bike!

/goes all misty eyed.

That orange SS and the article they did about downhilling on whatever bike you have convinced me to go SS!

I think I have all the Mountainbike World magazines somewhere – I’ll have to dig them out and see what names I can find…