Just wondering how the peeps on here started MTB’ing, was it racing? by chance? I started in 97, moved from the Wirral to NorthWales and bought cheap bike to get fit. Loved it, ended up upgrading to a Marin and not looked back. Even did the local race scene until foot and mouth put an end to it.

Here (yes, it’s footpath, but I was 14 and we didn’t care back then)

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=394060&Y=382690&A=Y&Z=120

Early 90s working through the Munros

We had done all the easy/accessible ones and it was becoming a pain to bothy/bivvy the remainder because they were monopolised by big groups, SAS-types and bothy rats who were there for more than a day or two.

So we had the idea of getting one of those new-fangled mountain bikes and riding in to the mountains. It worked really well; bike in, hide the bike in the undergrowth or by some rocks, climb the hill, ride out again and back in time for tea and cakes.

1996 Up and down the Wrekin/Acle wood near telford. Bl*ody loved it.

Crystal Palace Park in 2001 as i lived just down the road.

On a Spesh Hardrock that i bought on a whim as i worked in Waterloo next to the Evans store. Still have it and it’s sat in the office behind me for occasional lunchtime pootles. Everything else is 29er now but i’ll never sell the Hardrock. May retire it at 10,000 miles, it’s on 8200 at the moment.

!987 as an alternative to windsurfing when there was no wind. it was a Marin Bear Valley

Shared a student house in Huddersfield (1989-92) with a bloke who had one. I had a go on it and liked it.

As a kid I liked riding my bike (10ish), we had the Bristol/Bath cycle path on the doorstep and some nice off-roading bits (tractor trails). 14ish and I had more freedom and loved being able to go places, Castle Coombe mainly, on the bike.

Met some like minded people at college which showed me what mountain biking really was and how to grow some balls! Riding down the Portway rock, etc.

Got driving license and never touched a bike for a bout 13 years… Got back into it due to depression, helped me a lot and will NEVER give it up! 😀

1986. Painswick beacon, Cotswolds, emmelle cougar pos. Had ridden my bmx round those trails for 2 years prior. Still riding there now and again today! Washing up in the royal William(cranham) got me my 89/90 kona explosif eventually.

Loxley common

followed by Wharncliffe woods

1996 in Bristol.
Then soon after getting that bike I moved to Holland for a few years.

In the Forest of Dean. Way back we messed about as kids in the woods but mountain biking came along years later. My first ATB would have been end of the 80s, frame miles too big, bar ends to make a highland cow envious. Didn’t progress to a MTB until later in the 90s 8)

1987 Plymouth coastal area around Plymstock .
I was working in the area and bought my first ATB in Plymouth.
A Dawes Wildcat ,it was teh awzums 😀

1989 as an additional way of staying fit for my Martial Arts training. First bike was a s/h Saracen bought from a local lad who was saving up for a Kirk. I think I ended up with the better of the two bikes, but mine was not nearly a cool!

https://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?size=300×300&maptype=roadmap&sensor=false&markers=color:red%7C53.610711,-2.11657&client=google-maps-sharing&signature=Bw_UpQIT35HVnddUKBY0E3lNJoQ=

About 1990, on a Muddy Fox Sorcerer, in The Vale of the White Horse. Progressed to an Orange Clockwork until it was nicked 🙁

1990 on the Quantocks. I was 10.
In 1991 I did my first race, also on the Quantocks.

I’m almost 33 now and I still ride on the Quantocks pretty frequently 😉

1992, Torquay.

Spring of 1991, in Winnipeg, Canada.

Liked dirt, so sold my road bike and bought a mountain bike. Road as much as I could, from river-side paths, to forest floors, to beaches.

proper mountain biking?
probably a ride up Roseberry Topping and over to Captain Cook’s Monument in the early 90s.

I started when I went to Sheffield Uni in ’91. A group of the lads in my hall of residence had mountain bikes and I took the piss out of them mercilessly (along with the other non-lycra wearing blokes) until they challenged me to go on a ride with them.
I wanted to get fit and loved being out in the countryside anyway, so after a really tough & scary ride up Endcliffe Park, to Stanage Edge & Blacka moor I was hooked. Bought my first bike with my student loan a few weeks later & never looked back. Changed my life & I’ll never give it up either (no matter what the missus says!!) 🙂

1986/7. Hired one from Andy?? ( Andy who I think now runs/ owns Biketreks in Ambleside) who had three MBK’s?? in a shed in Elterwater.

Did the classic Under Loughrigg route.

Loved it and have never looked back.

North Downs and around Limpsfield Chart and Crockham Hill, on the Surrey Kent border, late 80s and 90s.

Buxton
’88/’89

Used it for riding over Long Hill for my Saturday job. A chap who worked for my Dad had some involvement with the Tim Banton/Andy Spencer Peak District guide book so got a copy of that and started exploring. Twas a Spesh Hard Rock that now lives at the mother-in-law’s.

1993, A mate at school had a Raleigh with Scott unishock suspension forks (48mm of travel!) and I thought it was the coolest thing – persuaded my parents I could spend my life savings on a specialzed rockhopper fs. Started riding around the isle of white.

Peak District, above Ladybower, on a Claude Butler, in a baseball cap, with a backpack and a 2L “coke” bottle filled with water.

I rode some really excitingly steep rocky stuff on the route down to the road around the reservoir too but only because my brakes wouldn’t stop me.
😀

April 1991 up the Sidlaws on a Raleigh Yukon 😕

nearly bought an early mountain bike in 1987 but my dad decided a new bmx would easier to maintain….rode my first mtb in 1990 when our youth service got a new fleet of specialized rockhoppers…the bug then bit and i worked as many paper rounds to buy my first mtb a couple of years later…a raleigh shaftivator…(seemed like a good idea at the time as it had front suspension)…after a few years of shame on that i bought my first proper mtb in 1996…a marin eldridge grade…by then i was well and truly infected by the mountain bike bug!!

Salisbury Plain and South Devon, some time in the 80s. Crikey. That’s a long time ago.

Initially on forest trails and coastal runs around Annan in 1989 with the occasional trip to Mabie forest and around the woods near Hoddam Estate where the ranger chased you on a quad bike!! Quality training that was! We also used to sneak into a local open cast mine of a sunday and razz round the quarry, which was awesome, but we always ended up filthy and getting hosed down by my Mum!! Jeans/Trainers/no helmet of course…

All on my beloved yellow and white Raleigh Maverick 1988, it doubled as my “ATB” and paper round bike until it passed away from over use and being pretty crap in 1997. It sadly resides in landfill now as my folks dumped it when they moved.

Wiltshire, 1988

1996 taking the fun (and forbidden) route through Wimbledon Common on the way back from work in the centre of London. I was riding a secondhand full rigid bike bought just to get to and from work, the name of the frame was something like ‘American Renegade’, it had a pink/grey fade, lugged tubes, biopace chainset and u-brakes. I started buying magazines to find out more about mountain biking, and was hooked.
Then properly in 1997/98 when I started Uni in Telford/Wolverhampton – also up the Wrekin/Ercall and over to Cannock and various Shropshire hills.

1989 when I moved to Shrewsbury on my own and wanting to get fitness back.
Bought a cheap Townsend from Mellor Cycles and been riding ever since.

1996. Parents bought a house with 4 acres of woodland with (cheeky) trails in it. 5 years after that I found that Huddersfield uni DH club had it’s practice trail 10 mins ride away from said house (Storthes Hall).

12 years later they still live there and I’m still riding buggering about in those woods when I go visit….

1991 – Reading University – blew my ‘got to live on for the year money’ on a Purple Cannondale M500. Yum Yum.

The University Cycling Club were very accomodating – meet outside the library on Wednesday afternoons – or Sunday Mornings (late) and then head out past Pangbourne, sometimes to Crowthorn / Swinley – plus the odd race…..

1985 on my road bike and bought my first mtb in 86. I started riding the road bike over the South Downs as a short-cut to decent roads but then decided I liked riding where there were no cars. And I’m still riding the same routes today. I’m lucky enough to have a commute which I can vary anywhere between 6 and 26 miles with only a mile of it on the road. I’m not really a mountain biker at all just someone who happens to use one to ride around the countryside.

Rode an Overburys fellrider that me and a mate borrowed from them after the Bristol buike show in 84? He bought one I bought a raleigh maverick and we explored the Mendips .It was great in those days because you didnt see anyone else on a bike offroad .The trails above Burrington Combe were mine

Started 1997. My first bike was a steel Rockhopper that I saved up for.

Most of my rides were in the local woods (Hogback in Beaconsfield and Hodgemoor not that far away). Also spent a lot of time in Burnham Beeches but bike theft was rife being close to Slough, including my Rochopper. In fact I think all of my riding buddies had a bike nicked there! We also used to build jumps in some woods between Stoke Poges and Burnham. There were also a load of jumps built in some woods near Chalfont st Peter. High Wycome BMX track was popular too as was Slough especially after they filmed a Sprung section there.

The MBUK team turned up at Burnham Beeches a couple of times as did Nigel Page was he was sponsored by Rotwild. Rob Warner used to ride at Hodgemoor sometimes because the dirt jumps were pretty good and big too…the rythem section was well long.

They were great times, hanging around on the sketchy jumps etc.

Yorkshire Dales 93-95 there abouts. At that time, I thought that walking in the local Dales was a bit lame and of no interest, but didn’t want to traipse up to the Lakes/Scotland all the time. MTBing kind of livened the Dales up a bit and made the whole thing more acceptable as it was relatively new, exciting and you could cover lots of ground.
Started MTBing in the Alps in 97 as an alternative on climbing hols, when the weather was bad.
First Bike was a GT Timberline