Twenty years ago….What were you riding?

A bright orange GT Pantera AL

I saw it advertised in MBUK and had to have one, it replaced my Ridgeback ? Yellow and blue that was a few years old already,

Christ its been a long time,

An ’89 Peugeot Laser ATB, frame size at least 4″ bigger than I would choose nowadays and mahoosive red anodized bar-ends. I think I’ve still got the bar-ends somewhere… 8)

either a 5 Speed Racer or a 21 speed MBK Monaco in Bright neon green with index shifters that never indexed.

this one isn’t mine but it was the same as my fine ride. i had to miss the school ski trip to get this. totally worth it!

An ’86 Rockhopper, which I stupidly sold in 1997. X28 rims, spesh sealed hubs, Deore groupset, alpine gearing, DX pedals and thumbies. Loved it to bits and rode it far more than anything since. Only mods were an Avocet computer, B66 saddle, Blumels mtn pump and guards, Tricross front tyre for comfort & Sedisport 6 speed chain with Suntour 6 speed cluster once the original 5 speed kit had died.

28lbs of rigid perfection.

A gt tequesta in “I’veeaten toothpaste and sicked it up on a frame blue’

one of these bad boys. got robbed on me paper round. but without shockos

then I got an insurance raliegh amazon, thanks mum

until I saved up glass collection money for this.

untill that got robbed outside 6th form

I then threw myself into booze and chicks for a few years until I bought a 1998 kona cindercone, which is a triggers broom cotic soul now.

I was riding a rockhopper. In fact the very same rockhopper that I have just bought off of here. It’s just as beautiful as I remember it 🙂

20 years ago I didn’t have a mtb 🙁
Had one of these though:

8)

i was riding one of these bad boys (NOT MY PHOTO) 😀 i loved it 😀
EDIT up to that point i was riding a 1988 dawes ascent mountain bike.the eldridge grade felt like night had become day in comparison 😀

In ’92 I just bought my first mountain bike, another Marin Eldridge Grade. Great bike, lasted for years and never broke. I never replaced the chainset either and it didn’t seem to matter at all.

I think I was riding a Trek 8500 or 8700 hardtail, it had aluminium tubes glued to the lugs, black with a white splatter finish, rigid “big fork”. I took it on the ‘plane to Malaga, put it in the hold of the bus to Motril and rode it up into the Sierra Nevada to visit some friends living in a commune in Orgiva… only to find that they had gone back to England!

I was also reading magazines like this:

Black Kona Cindercone. Pink Onza bar ends, pink pump, pink frame bag – what can I say, pink was in!
Still got it and still using the frame.

Either a Raleigh Discovery pimped out(in my mind anyway) with Continental Supercross tyres rather than the semi slicks it came with or a Marin Palisades Trail with the same tyres and purple bar ends on chopped down bars. Oh and a very flourescent corner frame bag thing to make carrying less painful. There seemed to be a lot of carrying in those days!

I was riding this 1988 Explosif, I still have it and ride it now.

I’d love to know what Raleigh model it was- it had a Y-shaped seat stay rigid hardtail- any ideas?

Andy, I remember that Explosif when I first walked into a bike shop to get my first mountain bike , I think they were about £700 from memory? I baulked at the price and still spent twice my budget when I chose the Cindercone at £429, still have the receipt but not the bike!

A surfboard.

A ’92 Palisades Trail, bought from Behind Bars in Abingdon. I really wanted a Cindercone (?) the one with the 18sp Suntour set up but couldn’t afford it. Was a toss up between the Marin and a Lava Dome and the rapid fire shifters swung it. Sold it to a neighbour who’s never ridden it. Still has the Onza bar ends and the DX chainset I upgraded to from biopace.

A raliegh marauder, heavy piece of ****! loved it though! 🙂

One like this…

Carrera Kashmir. It had oval rings for blah blah blah. Is that bio-pace?

in 1992 I saved up loads of lawn mowing money and swapped an Emmelle Cougar (white and flouro yellow, i think) for a Marin Bobcat Trail:

I was going to buy a shogun trail breaker, but I won a competition in PC Zone magazine.. the prize was a Creative Soundblaster 2, which I sold for £60 (a fortune!)

Dave

Can I just add that I still use the shop where I bought that Ascent EX. Bought about five more bikes from them since then!

Cindercone 1990:
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Coed_Y_Brenin_Aug1990[/url] by franklini10[/url], on Flickr

Rascal a little later:
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n759618369_674274_5040[/url] by franklini10[/url], on Flickr

No idea what it was called, and no pics, but it was a beach cruiser type mtb. 3 tubes in the top tube, a middle thick one and two thinner ones each side, all curved. High riser type bars with black foam covering them.

Heavy as anything, but still rode everywhere.

Started on a Carrera Krakatoa – Yellow/black with rear U brake under the chainstay. Broke two of those, got a full refund.
Bought Kona Fire Mountain, wrote that off crashing into a car.
Bought Kona Cinder Cone and raced it to mid-table mediocrity through ’92 and ’93

[/url]
BMBF1993[/url] by richardkenny[/url], on Flickr

One of these (but not that one).

It broke.

Muddy Fox Courier for me until it got nicked with another bike it was locked to in Canterbury in 1995 🙁

One of these:

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/files/raleigh_montage_158.jpg

I remember picking it coz of the black rims

20 years ago this Christmas I got my MTB – I went to the local Raleigh dealership with my mum and dad to look at a Montage, and one of the lads who worked there asked quietly if we’d be interested in a second hand bike. Popped over to his house later that day to be met by a 17″ 1989 Rockhopper Comp with Deore gears, Farmer John’s Cousin tyres, a Turbo Saddle, 150mm Salsa stem complete with little roller and some ridiculously narrow bars (am guessing 450mm max) which we picked up for £350.

I was the envy of the entire school as everyone else was rolling around on Emmelles, Al Carters and Raleighs. I raced it regularly in the Leisure Lakes series.

It was very sadly stolen a year later but the insurance coughed up and I got a very nice GT Zaskar for which I saved up for 6 months and bought some Rock Shox Mag 20s.

Tho

Already progressed from an MBK Aventure (flouro wagon), MS Racing Cromo LX then a 1990 Cinder Cone.

Pretty sure I was on my ’91 GT Zaskar LE, rigid forks, U brake rear, 261 ceramics on Pace hubs and a pair of AT4 pro bars, a bike a regret selling but then it just funded the next great one, a custom Fuquay.

This was about 20 years ago. Haro Sport painted blue and black with hammerite using a toothbrush. I have a another pic somewhere of it with me riding a miniramp while dressed as elvis 😐

I think around that time I had a Claud Butler something mtb (it began with V). It was metallic pink and it broke.

Dawes tracker

Biopace rings
Onza porc tyres
Fluoro pads and frame bags of every description
Sharkfin chainstay protector

Rode like a psychadelic anvil, was secretly jealous of my mates peugeot sahara

psychedelic anvil

🙂 Band name manqué!

Green Halfords own brand “Apollo” something bought with saving up from a paper round. Made from pure mild steel I’m sure- weighed a ton! Rode it into the ground, including riding Sheffield to Whitby one weekend. Gave it to a mate once I could afford “suspension” (RST elastomer forks) on a Giant ATX (about 5 or 6 years later). Worst decision I ever made as he let it turn to rust!

A 1991 GT Outpost, that I bought off my brother.

The same amount of suspension as my current bike but with about 20 more gears.

I had just got one of these and was loving it. Filet brazed Tange Prestige!

17.5″ Alpine Stars Al-Mega DX – I remember fitting a 145mm stem, which took some sourcing in those pre-internet days since the headset was 1 1/4″.

Like this, but this pic is somebody else’s:

Would’ve been about 3 so probably a play trike thing.