part one; circa ’93/’94 on some multicoloured piece of junk riding around shaw/oldham & rochdale with mates. were were at lee/buckstones quarries way back then! bought 2nd hand Marin Indian Fire Trail off LBS owner with Manitou 1 forks. still got the frame that i’ve been wanting to rebuild for many years

interlude; university, travel, beer, women, parties, 2 snowboarding seasons

part two; a top a hill whilst living in new zealand. hired a Giant something or another and took it up coronet peak near queenstown. took me just 1 hour to realise i had to buy another bike. arrived back in the UK a year later ’08, got a job and first thing i bought with my first pay cheque was my norco six-one. haven’t given up on the beer, women, partying and snowboarding yet…

Properly in 1998 on a Mongoose Zero-G SX.
Always been a roadie you see, though I had a cheapo to lark about on in the mid eighties.
However back in the early seventies we were hooning about the woods on converted 26″ wheel standard bikes i.e Canadian cow-horns, singlespeed, knobly cycle speedway tyres, straightened forks and rear brake only.

First heard about MTBing in ’88, a guy I was working with at Amex was riding the SDW.

First went MTBing in ’90 in Austin, Texas, we hired some bikes and went riding. I then started to go regularly, either hiring or borrowing bikes, and then bought my first bike Jan ’91, a Fusion 1001 as recommended by MBUK as an entry level bike.

2003, 6 yrs on and i’m having my 5th annual two months off due to injury.

God i love bikes.

1987 on a Marin Bear Valley, as a alternative to windless windsurfing days

Tracey

Whenever the grey GT Timberline with Exage and 500LX came out – 1989? Loved it. Put one of the first sets of SPDs on it, the DX ones. Plus the ubiquitous Onza bar ends (neon green).

Upgraded to a black Kona Explosif in 1992 (I think), which I still have. Whacked some Manitou 2s on it once I realised that the Flexstems were rubbish. I also had some white Porcs on it and did a lot of the original Salisbury Plan Challenges, Erlestoke races etc. Happy days indeed.

Late 80’s first attempt on a borrowed Raleigh Mustang.

Early 90’s – a trip to Leisure Lakes and 3 post dated cheques later I was the proud owner of an Orange Clockwork LX 😆 matt black one, for ever replacing the ‘Orange’ stickers as they just would not stick…. top mount thumbshifters, not indexed, tyres changed for onza porcupines, 1.8 rear, 2.1 front……
Axa ankle boots, purple and green, toe-clips…….. oh, and Troll 2nd skin leggings – vertical 1cm wide stripes in yellow and purple……… 😳 and de-rigeur etto helmet – with ears………. 😳 😳
Halogen days 😆

Bike nicked 1994 ‘ish – evidently ‘robbing to order’ as the orange went but the tea-leaves left, you guessed it – a Mustang…… 🙄 Only ‘replaced’ 2 years ago and I’m only now getting back into riding….. 😆
Why oh why did I leave it so long….

I had a Raleigh Technium(the white one) in the late 80’s, I had a 12-23 cassette on it along with a 10cm Cinelli 1a stem and spesh Ground controls on it. I won my first MTB race around a forest near Dalkieth on it.

Pretty good reading alot of the above, some folks have been mtbers for a while. Also the list of bikes, strippy tights and fashion victim helmets has brought back a few memories. Committed loads of those crime especially the troll tights thing (what a fool I looked. Meself started mid 80’s on a Muddy Fox explorer bought new and to big, moved on to a Kona Explosif with green paint and yellow splatter, Alpinestars raised chainstay big that every weld cracked (a mate noticed it just before we rode down Jacobs Ladder), Orange Prestige matt black with Pace RC51’s full XT (1992 I think) still have this bike in dungeon. Tried a KHS Ti frame that I managed to get down to 23lb but kept breaking the ally bolts all the time (zipties are life savers). Then managed three Pace frames with various bits (still have a shinny square tube frame), Tomac 98 and am now in love with a Merlin works 4 plus a global hardtail. Also got a Jake the Snake various road bikes and a Tandem. I supose it’s a long list but I love bikes, biking and bike people, life would not be the same without an escape to pedal as often as possible. The laugh for me is that I only start because I was sick of getting rain off from climbing one particular wet summer. Also I would not have a wife that can build wheels. Hmmm…what aboring old fart I have become.

1985 – on a white Saracen Conquest – even won a few MTB races that year! also rode the 3 Peaks Cyclo Cross race on it (think they banned MTB’s the following year?)

If childhood BMX shenannigans in the woods don’t count, then 1988, shortly after buying issue 1 of Mountain Biking UK at Charing Cross station whilst on a day out to London with my dad!

First was a 15 spd Emmelle Cougar 15 (21″ with room to grow of course – I was only 12!) then, like Joxster – Had a white Raleigh Technium around 1990 – The ‘Chill’ I think, aluminium bonded frame was fairly space age at the time. Followed by saracen Tuff Trax comp which was nicked while I did my paper round on it and replaced by an Alpinestars Al-mega.

Sadly (or not, perhaps) I then discovered girls, cars and beer around 17 and didn’t go near a bike until 2004 – when I was utterly confused by all the new terminology and genres…what happened to just ‘riding’?…things had moved on a huge amount, though I certainly don’t miss the endless hours spent trying to set up cantilever brakes ‘just so’!

Glad to say I still ride with some of the same guys I did aged 12.

Must have been about 88/89 on a Ridgeback 602. Moved onto a Marin Pine Mountain after that got nicked and then a Kona Lava Dome shortly after in the early 90s. Got a Zaskar LE in ’95 and rode that until about a week ago when a shiny new FSR XC arrived.

I also had a Jamis and an RTS 1 I think, can’t remember the make it was a full suss and I had to replace the elastomers in the forks

’89 on a Trek 830, but in the early 70’s I frequently broke my Sun racer riding offroad.

Great to read this, so many bikes I lusted after in their day, and Axa boots in purple & green, remember them well. First ever forray into mountain biking was on a Giant, hired for a few days around 88 and taken out to play on the Southern Upland way. First serious event around 1990 on a Raleigh Lizard. That showed me how awful the bike was and upgraded to another Raleigh that had team issue on it somewhere. Still fully rigid in those days, can still remember that burning sensation at the end of the downhills. Moved on to a series of Diamond Backs and suspension forks (at last) Even had a carbon fibre one way before it was trendy. Ended up on a Zaskar around 2000 which really was a great bike and just so fast. Since then been down the full suspension route, but really didnt get on with it so went backwards to a singlespeed rigid inbred which i still love. Been playing on a Soul for a while, but its not the love affair I hoped it would be. Just bought a Scandal in hope of re-capturing some of that Zaskar speed.

1984-85 razzing round the field at the back of our house on a pink girls bike with Frosties reflectors

85-92 razzing about hills on old BMX / Grifter / random road bike

92-94 razzing about the hills on a raleigh mustang

94-97 razzing about the hills on Orange Prestige / Orange Elite

97-98 Racing on my Marin Rift Zone

99-2003 BMX

03-08 nothing

08-now Kona SS & Marin Rift Zone

I’ve been riding for 25 years, bloody hell, quarter of a century, you’d think I’d be good at it by now

1988!! 🙁

1986- After years of offroad motorcycling and road cycling I thought I’ld combine the two but nearly coughed my lungs up on the first ride and put the bike back in the shed for a few months. Tried again on a less ambitious route and have been hooked ever since.
Not my first but a very early bike was a Saracen with a chain stay rear u-brake. What a genius design!

1986 here too – on the first Marin Palisades Trail in the country 🙂

Wrote my degree thesis on the management of mountain biking in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1992. Used my girlfriends bike for “research purposes”, and got hooked, despite my first bike being a Kirk Revolution

If a Red Raleigh Grifter counts as an early MTB 1981 😕

However first off road around what became the Afan Argoed trails around 1987 wow 22 years and am still crap!

1991 – when a colleague at work with a stumpjumper took me up to the lakes. I hired a Nishiki something (I think) in Ambleside and tried to keep up with him. After a couple of hours of coughing and nearly puking I thought it was the best thing I’d tried on two wheels.

Came home and bought a GT Tequesta. And I’ve still got it – many changes later (including replacing that bl00dy useless u-brake) but now used as my commuter.

First MTB in 1989. An oversized (you’ll grow into it) Emmelle Cougar. 30 – 40lb of Hi-ten steel. Steel wheels, badly functioning canti brakes and 15 sis gears 🙂

Soon moved onto a Muddy Fox Courier Comp as soon as I saved up enough pocket money to buy a 2nd hand one 😉

August 1985 – hired a Muddy Fox Bigfoot a bit like this one, only the previous model:

and went riding along the riverbank path from Sunderland to Cox Green and back again with me dad. We both enjoyed it so much that me dad bought the muddy fox off the shop for my 10th birthday and a Diamond Back of some sort (think it was an Explorer) for himself.

Theiving scum made off with both bikes after a couple of years.

1990 was when I got a Raleigh Lizard for my birthday after pestering my dad for that over a nasty Peugeout thing, orange and green for £30 less. Started riding to some local woods in the pissing rain & deep mud loving it. That got nicked, bought a Shogun Prairie Breaker (I think) over a Kona Fire Mountain because I preferred the paint job. Durrrhhh!! That got nicked a year later, thats when I bought my KHS Montana Comp in 1993 and started riding more seriously and never looked back. I miss those days.

87, Tufftrax, far too big for me.

First proper mountain biking – 96
Been riding towpaths and fireroads for a few years before that, but in 96 did a weekend on my Trek 4300 at Rivington with Ray Mazey.

And that was it I was hooked.

Highlight for me was the icecream run – got to the bottom, thought “that was fun”, then burst in hysterical laughter. Ray came down shortly after. “You mad bastard!” he said “you just did that at least as quick as the DH guys we saw this morning” 😆
He also advised I get a better bike or a) I would be held back by the bike, or b) kill myself 🙂

1990. Bought a Saracen Tufftrax, which I remember subsequently upgrading with a Flexistem and alloy bars.

riding bikes on singletrack in the woods and building jumps – 1974
first actual “mountainbike” – 1991ish

2 thousand and something…..i’ve been very confused since the turn of the century 😯 It was a yellow and black Raleigh full susser that I naively thought looked the business.Only bought it to ride with my kids. Made the mistake of buying a mountain bike mag when we were on holiday…liked the look of it and hooked -up with Stoke MTB Club on my return. Didn’t take long to wreck the Raleigh,so moved onto a ex-demo Stumpy FSR.
Had a few health problems and stopped riding for 3 years. Started again about this time last year. The stumpy has gone and the 575 has taken its’ place. Enjoy riding now ,more than I’ve ever done. The Tuesday night Gang are a great bunch of people.

Started riding a mountain bike in 1991

Started mountain-biking in 2008

nice to see lots of people who were ‘mountain biking’ long before it was invented. Me, it was about ’77. The bike I had looked just like those diamond backs people have posted pictures of, but we made them ourselves. All the kids had one and everyone rode them offroad in just the same places everyone does now.

I was lucky and grew up in New Mills so Kinder beckoned and we’d ride there in cut off jeans, offroad most of the way with a tin of coke in our back pockets.

You can imagine how cross we were when some blokes in America copied us and started making money out of it.

edit: yep, like MrCrud’s picture.
When my dad died I rooted through the many thousands of pictures he had trying to find the pictures I know were taken of us riding around in flares and loud shirts but sadly they’d gone missing.

1991, possibly? 91 or 92. I had a raleigh marauder before that but kids bikes don’t count, I wasn’t really “mountain biking” til I got that carrera. Most of a year’s birthday, christmas and paper round, it cost me. Then, stopped in about 97 or 98 and didn’t ride again once for a decade.

Sometime in the late 1980s/1990s I think. I remember haring about through all the fallen trees following the great storm. My pride and joy and 1st ‘proper’ MTB was a bright green Saracen with the lairy block graphics. It came complete with a u-brake mounted on the underside of the rear stays. Not entirely sure of the logic as it was a PITA for getting clogged up with mud. I saved my paper-round money for ages and bought a fillet-brazed,prestige tubed Saracen frame to replace it. Still regret selling it.

There was a gang of about 10 of us -used to cycle across Ashdown Forest, various sections of the South Downs (lovely memories of cycling back from near Brighton cross-country with my father) and in an old bomb-crater off the local golf-course. It was retro-tastic – there was a selection of Kona, Marins, an early Yeti, a CromegaDX and one of my mates was considered the luckiest guy alive when Orange messed up and sent him two Clockworks instead of one…

85 or 6 i think. a mate had a muddy fox and i got a Raleigh Mustang for my birthday. rode it ragged including my first double landing short and folding the forks backwards… i was just riding along 🙂 those were the days of BBs lasting a month, Aztec Brake blocks being an upgrade and foam grips landing me on my arse many times. no helmet for ages as well. jumpers for goalposts etc

Off roading pretending to be cyclocrossers from early 70’s but first trips on a mountain bike were up Snowdon in I think 84, on a Dawes (Ranger?)Most annoyed when the Cranes did the Welsh 3’s as we were quietly doing each one with the view. to doing the lot in a day

1995/6

1991 – British Eagle 531 framed monstrosity (sold and built up as a shop special – Warminster Cycles? Began with W anyway, from an advert in the back of MBUK).

Replaced due to a broken frame with a new 1993 Marin Palisades Trail from Cooksons! Bought some Onza bar ends and a hideous purple and yellow rain jacket, cos it matched the purple bits on the bike.
I looked like an over-ripe Ribena berry. Never bothered with a helmet though!

Hacking around Boggart Hole Clough in Blackey on a Grifter from 1977 though, wasn’t quite old enough for a Tracker!.
When the Grifter eventually died I bought a copy of the first ‘Richards Bicycle Boook’and a road bike. Darkside ’till mate bought a GT Tequesta in 1991, which is where I came in…….

Used to go through the local woods on my Raleigh Chipper in the 70’s 😀 me and my mates on choppers and grifters, that’s just what we did, probably like everyone here?

But, first MTB would be a borrowed mustang in 1987, it was shocking, I was into motorbikes then and wore my frank thomas enduro type jacket and cooked, didn’t put me off, then got a 2nd hand MTB that had bullmoose bars and sunrace(?) shifters/gears – that was a bit useless too, but lost interest. Then in 1992 a motorbike mag had a article about mountain biking and the bikes looked completely different, so I went and got a new proper MTB, Rockhopper. Had the Axo pony SPD green purple boots too and the Onza SPD’s when they first came out, nice ligt, simple but horrible to use, sold them after one ride – most of it spent on the floor still attached to my bike! 😆

1985 was the first mountain bike. but I was riding in the mountains, brecon beacons for a few years before that.