Twenty years ago….What were you riding?

I was riding my Condor Diablo. The same beastie, as it happens, that I rode into work on this morning 🙂

20 years ago….

This morning…..

Everyone had a Marin Pine Mountain at some point back in the day, for good reason too as they were a cracking bike with light tange tubing, my stem was 130mm if i remember right along with skinny cut down ultralight bars and manitou 2 forks with a whopping 40mm of saggy elastomer travel.

Road bikes and a ropey MTB that I used on cycle paths as that as off road

Marin Palisades with grey frame and yellow luminous fork.
Still have a ’92 Orange Clockwork as my pub bike.

Lots of Marins back in the day. Birthday money and paper round wages got me a second hand Palisades Trail my Mum spotted advertised in The Hull Daily Mail.

Vicky Gardener. Drifts off and gets stiffy.

My GT Timberline. It was metallic green then though, & had rigid forks. The RockShox Quadras came along later, & then came the respray, to try & make it look like a ball burnished Zaskar. 🙂
The decals are actually made from insulating tape…!!!
My brother has commuted on it for years. I’ve told him I want first refusal if he gets rid. Christ knows why… 🙂

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IMAG0510[/url] by pten2106[/url], on Flickr

I had not long since sold this beast:

This pic’s more recent than that, but I bought this bike in 91 I think. Still got it, it’s my commuter now. (that’s me up the back- my brothers up front on Halfords Sarcinz. Mine is a Carrera Krakatoa, ace thing.

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Old school[/url] by Northwindlowlander[/url], on Flickr

Saracen Sahara Elite, and the wife on a Carrera Karakorum.Simple bikes which we had great times on. Both seem a world away from today’s bikes.

love all the old marin pics i desperately wanted a palisades but couldn’t really afford it…

i had a peugeot surfer, which was purple with yellow handle bars and a pink fork… can’t find picture of it anywhere…

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Malverns "92[/url] by Kerv F[/url], on Flickr

GT Zaskar. 😀

Great to see so many Marins

I still use my Bear Valley from 20 years back

/high fives the GT brothers/

’91 Timberline. This one’s not mine, it’s the same but you’ll have to imagine the seat at full hoist…

STI100 gears, bio pace rings, the most astonishingly rigid hi tensile frame

Fisher CR-7, Pace Rc30’s, Cooks Bros cranks and Ti bars, custom Steve Wade modded pace style flexstem, rolled ma40’s, Magura hs33’s with trimmed levers and roko lever skins.

Or maybe I’d just got my yo eddy with rc35s.

Some cheap crappy old Townsend ATB. Only had it for about 2 weeks though before it got nicked!!

Didn’t have a bike for a few years after that though until the bro-in-law gave me his dyna-tech.

Probably a vitus 979, I thought I was Sean Kelly 😳

My first wife

CFH, I wish I had pictures! It was purple enamel on the funks then, not anodised. Remember being given the wrong size and cycling from market harborough to Nottingham with the forks on my back as they didn’t fit the headtube when I went to build it up. Turns out the forks were fine. They’d given me a 20″ instead of an 18″ so it was back the following weekend on the train. Didn’t fancy trying the ride with a frame on my back.

Some woman knocked me off my 1990 team Marin. It was the insurance money that paid for it.

A ’91 Specialized Hardrock…T bone stem, Brahma bars, LX two finger brake levers, Ground control tyres (fitted after I found out why all my mates called Tioga Mud Dawgs “clog dogs”)

Sold the bike to my brother when I moved to Germany in the mid 90’s (and bought a Proflex 855… 8) )

a ‘Probike’ bought for £125.
Not a good bike at all. But made me swear to buy a decent one as soon as I had the cash!

Another .GT Timberline here …after snapping my Diamond back topanga …loved that .GT

In 1992 I was still on my custom Alves, back then it was duck egg blue, the same colour as the soon to be launched bottom of the range Raleigh Maverick. It was built hy a hippy at the end of an unpaved road up near Elgin on the Moray coast.

I still have it. The last pesron to ride it was Jacquie Phelan, which was cool as it has a pair of Charlie’s hubs. It had IRD ti forks, switchback brakes and seat post. Mr IRD was was pretty stoked to still see the parts were out on the trails.

Tasty forks. What are they?

It had IRD ti forks

Sorry, should have read it in the first place 🙂
Still v. tasty.

My Dad leant me his Al Carter

He still had the thing up til last year, when we had to abandon it in his sister’s garage. What a heap o junk.
Got me hooked though

What a heap o junk.

Just crying out for a kickstand to make it complete.

I’m pretty sure I’d just bent my Trek 930 and got a Dynatech MT-4 to put all the bits (Mavic cranks, Pace rings, Magura Hydrostops, onZa bar ends, USE post, Flite etc) on. So a bit like this:

Actually, thinking about it, I’d had it a few months then, it was probably almost exactly 20 years ago that I raced it at a NEMBA at Lyme Park and bent the back end in the trials comp on account of being no good at trials. Raleigh mended it, which was nice, but not long after that I wrapped it around a gate above Hayfield. Bought a second-hand Cannondale frame to replace it, which I still have.

Either a Overbury’s Pioneer that got knicked or the Kona Kileau in Navy blue that replaced it. Infact it was probably both as as it was the year of the theft.
Here is me on the Kona 94

sneaking a go on my mates Explosif

A mk1 Carrera Krakatoa with the black with yellow splatter that looked like a low-rent copy of a Kona paint job. I really wanted a Klein Attitude, Fisher CR7 or a Kona Explosif! I would have ‘settled’ for a Saracen Trekker or a Specialized Rockhopper though…

Resprayed Dawes Ascent, metallic burgundy, all parts gradually upgraded to decent level when I could afford – mostly DX.

Got some Mavic 230s which were ridiculously light, but quickly became apparent were not made of just any cheese, but brie….

I went through three bikes in quick succession around this time, so either a Raleigh Technium Chill, the same as Singlespeedstu’s, or a 1991 Saracen Tufftrax comp that got nicked on my paper round, or the replacement; a 1990 pre elevated chain stay Alpinestars Al-Mega (had the black paint job XT frame but DX groupset)..bought secondhand from someone in Wales through the MBUK classifieds. I pimped it up with the obligatory white Onza Porcupines, USE seat post etc. and lots of anodised purple bits…I also remember desperately wanting to fit a Syncros 150mm/0 degree stem….

It was like this (Not mine:)

Kona Explosif pro (yes pro,no expense spared in those racy 90s ) 😉

Saracen Tufftrax.

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img050[/url] by jimmyg352[/url], on Flickr

A 1990 Diamond Back Topanga, I was only 11/12yrs old 😯

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Diamondback Topanga[/url] by phatmike[/url], on Flickr

A Diamondback Ascent EX, in a strange but rather good swirly grey colour with LX groupset and Tioga finishing kit. Just seen one like it for sale on the internet for $500; mine went down the tip during a clearout although I did find the chainset and a few other bits in a box in the garage last week.

My first mountain bike – a 2nd hand bright red Trek Singletrack 930 bought from an auction, got a lot to answer for that bike has. 🙂

I was riding one of either a GT RTS-1, or my Mountain Cycle San Andreas.

Which one was dependant on the speed of either GT uk, or Mountain Cycle in the US to supply me with one of the many warrantee frames i had from them.

Mountain Cycles were quicker at doing it than Tim Flooks. So, i was more often riding the San Andreas. Great bike (or so i thought at the time)

A Townsend Smoky Bear…
It was truly dreadful but did get me around. I really wanted a Marin or an Orange, still have never owned either of those brands. One day I will.

is it too late to say “your mum”?

One of these with white Scott Unishocks, Flexstem (overkill? . . . no change there then 😆 ) and purple bits 8)