What bike did you want when you first started mountain biking?

Looking back I’m glad I couldn’t afford either of them

muddy fox courier.

Fisher CR7

Nishiki Alien

Doug Bradbury Manitou (which still looks awesome now!)
I got my first Mtb in 1987 😯

There was an orange one in a world courier championships article in mbuk I think which had syncros everything and slicks – it looked awesome!

1993 Cinder Cone. Also (obvs) the titanium Hei Hei, but the Cinder Cone was frustratingly just-out-of-reach rather than pie-in-the-sky. Bought a GT Pantera instead which is still in use, but had 22 years worth of *sigh* for the sake of not finding an extra £150….

Dave Yates, then started to drift across the Atlantic and wanted a yeti ultimate.

I brought the one I wanted after putting a deposit on a Dawes I saw a Cindercone and wanted one straight away.

(not my pic)

Yep, that Pace and that Orange P7. I bought a P7 in the end, it was every bit a good as I hoped. I still want the Pace.

A Cannondale not too dissimilar to this one, there was an ad running in a bike mag (whatever cycling plus was before it was cycling plus) and it blew me away, I was used to gas pipe Raleigh bikes and this was made out of aluminum(sic). It might as well have been made by NASA. It was one of the things that drew me away from the road to mtb, the leaps and bounds the tech was taking whereas road bikes were stuck in the 70’s. Ended up my first bike was a Dale and I was a fanboi pretty much for the whole of my early mountain biking days. Funnily enough its all arse for elbow now as I love steel bikes and whilst alu has its place there ain’t no love.

I remember seeing a Klein for the first time and a Marin FRS in Dales, also the carbon swing armed SV’s!

Had zero clue about bikes when I started riding, it was almost by accident I bought a MTB for the sake of having a bike and the bug bit.

About a year later ‘Roam’ came out, and I desperately wanted a Demo 8, I kind of assumed owning it would automatically and instantly change me from a wobbling around Afan on my GT to hitting 40ft doubles.

I asked about one at my LBS, they looked me up and down, looked at my crappy GT wearing bald tyres and my £10 mushroom helmet and gently talked me out of it, and anyway – at the time whoever was in charge of Spesh in the UK had decided that we didn’t need Demos so they only imported a handful every year.

I bought a Enduro, it had the SAME HEADTUBE! It was great, but I reckon it took me 2 years to get good enough to use any of its potential.

That splatter Cinder Cone…..

DROOOOL! One of the best paint jobs ever.

That P7 up there ^^^

I bought a more affordable Marin instead, which I thought was great.

1993 Cinder Cone. Also (obvs) the titanium Hei Hei, but the Cinder Cone was frustratingly just-out-of-reach rather than pie-in-the-sky. Bought a GT Pantera instead which is still in use, but had 22 years worth of *sigh* for the sake of not finding an extra £150….

Same, I also wanted the hei hei. Worked my arse off on paper rounds and got myself a lava dome instead. I still have it, and ride it, to this day.

Ended up with a Palisades Trail a year later.
Still miss it, lovely bike.

1994 GT Zaskar. I had a 1993 GT Outpost.

Wanted a Kona Srinky. Had no idea how unsuited it was to my XC bimbling about

A marin pine mountain. ended up with a lavadome. Have a cindercone now tho

Cannondale hardtail with those headshok forks. In red. Those welds were amazing 🙂

That raven in the OP, it was the most expensive one in the catalogue…
Then an intense M1
Then a patriot, a Schwinn straight 8 and a Santa Cruz super 8

After seeing it in a bmx mag in 1984. I’d never seen anything like it before

A KHS Montana Pro with full xtr. I had to make do with borrowing my housemate’s GT Tequesta though as my student loans got spend on windsurfing kit.

I got an Orange P7 in nickel with LX (rigid forks, cantis) when I got my first proper job.

It was either the Alpinestars Ti-mega or a Saracen Conquest. Ended up with a Saracen Traverse Hydrotech after starting off on a Dawes Wildcat.

Pace rc-100 as my dream machine, Saracen Traverse as my first mtb.

1987 Peugeot Alpine Express

Anything from the classic Raleigh range of c.1989, from Lizard to Mustang to Yukon, Apex, the Land Rover one. I got the Lizard.

Roberts White Spider
Tange prestige
Pink

Had a courier- everything broke apart from the frame

Mate had one of those pugs

Can’t link on the phone, but an alpine stars Al mega xt with the e-stays.

After that, an orange clockwork. However this one I actually had. Bloody lovely and I only sold it 5 years ago, after many many miles and years of abuse (fun)

Fat Chance Yo Eddy

Ritchey P-22

John Tomac’s Raleigh

After getting completely bitten by the MTB bug after buying a second hand Falcon Descender in 1993, I just blew mine & Mrs Mc’s holiday fund on a totally blinged-up Cannondale M800 (Who couldn’t fall for a bike called the “Beast of the East”)
And when I say “blinged-up, I mean loads of PURPLE anodised bike jewelery, mmmmm !!
Al

Probably quite a few. Fat Chance Yo Eddy, Amp Research B1, the Manitou FS, JMCs Specialized…

My sights weren’t exactly set high. ended up getting a spesh hardrock with GS200 groupset and biopace chainrings.

Cost me £249.99.

I always wanted a Cannondale SuperV. I managed to get a Raven when I was working at a bike shop. Had to work a lot of Sunday’s to pay that one off. I later bought another one many years later, but it wasn’t as good as my memories

Flickr on the iPad is stopping me linking to photos…….

jimmy – Member
Anything from the classic Raleigh range of c.1989, from Lizard to Mustang to Yukon, Apex, the Land Rover one. I got the Lizard.

Landrover one was the Discovery
My first ‘proper’ bike, can remember like it was yesterday riding it back from Birkenhead Cycle Exchange with my dad jogging alongside
It still sits in the shed at my parents and my dad occasionally takes it for a spin
I lusted after the titanium team raleighs of Baker, Gould and Tomac
Once I started properly reading the mags it was all of the above, Pace, Ritchey, Fat Chance, Cindercone, Orange P7
Eventually in 95 went to buy, for my 21st a Clockwork Orange frame but the guy in sShockwave talked me into getting a Voodoo as they had just started importing them. It was an awesome bike that’s still going strong today

Shamed to say I wanted a Raleigh Activator. Thankfully I didn’t get one.
Instead I ended up with a GT arrowhead and proceeded to upgrade everything on it.
That has never ended, bike building and upgrading has continued.
However I did recently get hold of a GT STS, which had I known about them when I started I would have been chasing from the start.

Couldn’t afford magazines (fortunately) so just rode bikes instead of developing a bike fetish til the mid 90s, when I quite fancied (and almost got the funds together for) a Voodoo Bantu