[Closed] MTB'ing as a kid (90's content)

What do you remember most from when you first got into MTB’ing?

Being hugely unfit and overweight and struggling to ride up anything approaching a decent hill until I realised that the 28:38:48 and an 11:28 cassette that my cheapo Carrera came with weren't really helping.

What do you remember most from when you first got into MTB’ing?

Buying a Marin Hawk Hill in 1994 for FOUR HUNDRED POUNDS, and MartynS of this parish buying a Townsend somethingorother for about £150 "cos they're just the same". Within about two weeks he'd bought a Spesh Rockhopper for FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY POUNDS and he's been significantly outspending me ever since 🙂

I also rememeber buying some RST 281's thinking they were awesome. I then bought a Saracen Dirt Trax in about 1996 and put the RST's on that. 3x7, aluminium frame, V-Brakes. And it was way too big for me as a growing boy. I never did get that growth spurt.

What do you remember most from when you first got into MTB’ing?

Bending the forks on my Raleigh Avanti on a large drop. Then replacing it with a team issue Dynatech Pro. Loved that bike...

Chalk dust on the Plain.

Riding all day.... with no other commitments.

Bending the brace of the Marz Z1s and replacing it with an aftermarket brace...

Running Tioga Factory DH tyres but being amazed when IRC Cujos came out..

Original Hope Bulb hubs with the spider adaptors..

etc etc

1989-92 were my early MTB years...

Grinding the paint off the inside of my brand new bike's chain and seat-stays on a wet Ridgeway ride.
Having to stop and clear the mud/paste/gloop from the tyre with a stick every few hundred meters.
Killing a set of canti pads and a rear rim in one weekend.

Glorious summer days on the Berkshire downs, blue skies and birds of prey overhead, and dusty, chalk trails as far as they eye could see.

Watching my friend Chris repeatedly crash into a tree on the woodland singletrack we'd built in a local disused quarry.

Trying to service my Mag20s following the instructions in MTB Monthly. They never stopped leaking after that.

Fitting my first set of Maguras (1992-93?) and being gobsmacked by the sheer power of them.

Going to the Bicycle Expo at Ally Pally in 92 or 93 and racing bikes on the Ice rink. I took out Steve peat on a corner, and got roundly beaten by Zak Tempest (I think it was he).

Meeting Jason Mcroy at the show when it was at Olympia (1994?) and getting a signed poster.

I remember it well, it was just a transition from BMX but it was a whole new world.
Late 80's for me, I lived in Keswick and had a blast down the line, round Blencathra, Skiddaw and down the front of Lattrigg.
Mud was sprayed all over me and the bike and I had a great big smile.

It was on something like this but I think it was an earlier model.

What do you remember most from when you first got into MTB’ing?

Grinning from ear to ear almost continually as I rode that bike everywhere and couldn't beleive how much fun it was being able to ride over stuff my previous road bike (which had been stolen so bought the the MTB) could never do.

One of the best moves I ever made.

It was all BMXing where I grew up. late 80's, Building jumps in the street and trying jump over as many mates who dare lay on the floor!!

Then some lads I knew got ATB's (Raleigh Lizard, and a muddyfox) I wanted a Raleigh Mustang. I got a Townsend bag-o-crap a couple of years later and it was promptly nicked after about 3 weeks.

Didn't have a bike until I was in my mid 20's after that when I bought a GT Avalanche in 2003.

Being Super excited when I finally got a 'Proper' MTB a 92' Diamonback Ascent EX with true-temper tubing and an awesome splatter paintjob, it was the utter shiz (IMO), I wish I'd never flogged it...

I used to ride to Broadway Cycles in Stoneleigh pretty much every Saturday. It felt the size of a small warehouse to a small kid, and I can still smell the scent of new tyre rubber now. No big locks in those days, I used to lean the bike up outside, and have a quick check of it every 5 minutes. I often came back with a bag full of bike catalogues.

The first MTB I had was a Peugeot Ranger 10, which at the time had deeply unfashionable riser bars, but was pimped with a Cosmic bar pad and frame bag. I seem to remember the riser bars being one of the justifications for an upgrade to a GT Timberline in lovely racing green. My parents new-for-old insurance policy, and my bikes being knicked around the same time as the shop's annual sale, saw me go through Timberline, Tequesta and Borrego.

The blue Tequesta was peek 90's, with light grey Onza or Tioga tyres, Onza bar ends and a Sex Wax sticker over the head badge.

Always hankered for a Kona, but it never happened.

Not my bikes, but the same models...

XC-tastic in the woods!

Oooo Raleigh Maverick 2 sizes too big, frame bag in the top tube/seat tube junction, local motion top tube pad, giro hammerhead helmet and axo clothing, Tioga Farmer John Nephew tyres...

The 1992 Kona Lava Dome...proper bike that...Mk1 camelbak with the thin straps and a fresian cow cover...

I used to live near a huge B&Q and after hours we'd make ramps from all the pallets and plywood. We used to sprint across the car park and hit these shady wooden ramps flat out on crap bikes with no helmets. Every time you landed it we'd move the landing ramp slightly further back over and over until you bottled it. We were jumping some pretty big old gaps in those days! It's amazing what you can trick yourself into by working up to it inch by inch.

I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole these days.

Happy memories of a green & silver Raleigh Dynatech with bonded (not welded) titanium main tubes, and magura hydraulic rim brakes. Party piece was cycling very very slowly down very steep loose slopes.

Looking through the bike catalogue with my Dad to choose my new bike. He recommended going for the bike with gears from West Germany rather than Japan...

Oh and punctures and mud. Lots of both.

I guess I was a gravel early-adopter. My first bike in '89 was a Specialized Rock Combo, which was an MTB with wide, drop handlebars and a slightly odd geometry. They were selling them cheap from the bike shop at the bottom of Park St. in Bristol. Ended up putting flat bars on it in the end. Over 30 years ago, wow. Some great memories of riding around Bristol.

What do you remember most from when you first got into MTB’ing?

I saved up my paper round money and emptied my Post Office account to buy a 1992 GT Tequesta, complete with U-brake and splatter finish paint job. It was considerably less capable than my modern gravel bike but I loved it. Later, it was upgraded with Deore DX thumbies (great) and a Flexstem (not so much).

Saving up to buy some "ballistic" suspension forks for my "suspension ready" Alpinestars, they lasted an hour then they were knackered.

@cookeaa I had one of those too as did my mate at the time. His got nicked from outside the newsagent we delivered for!

I had mine right through until 2000 when I flogged it to a house mate as I'd got myself a Zaskar.

Looking at those pics up there, and I know this will be controversial, but GT's have always been ugly as f__. That triple triangle thing is/was just minging.

My mate learning that some people run their brake levers the wrong way round after testing the new fangled disk brakes on another guy's brand new DH bike. Truly awesome faceplant in the carpark. Those old Hayes HFXs made up for what they lacked in modulation with brute power.

In the interest of balance, my first bike looked like this:

I wish I'd never got rid of it.

Just Googled my first bike 😳 Glad I got rid of it TBH.

Lots of anodised purple bits.... endless adjusting of canti brakes. Getting cold wet and muddy and loving it, MBUK with multi page adverts listing all sorts of exotic kit (the M and P advert/catalogue springs to mind), Bike ‘95 and 96. Lusting after a Merlin XLM, being amazed by V brakes (oh the power!), suspension bikes becoming the norm and then disc brakes.

Apollo something or other was my first ATB - wanted a Muddy Fox, but the Apollo did me proud for a few years.  Mucking about along the disused canal and local woods, trying to make daft little trails like on Junior Kick Start.

Next bike was a 21" Raleigh Moonrun which I used to upgrade with pocket money at the Freewheel store in Nottingham, gutted I never made it to Bunneys until 30 odd years later after I had moved away...

Messing around near the Hemlock Stone was as technical as it got but those were fun times.

My mid teens were the early 80s, MTBs existed only in the freewheel catalogue, which I obsessed over. I rode on the road at the time.

Managed to buy a Tufftrax in 87, never looked back.

Early 90’s Freedom.

Just me, my mates and our bikes. We’d build jumps, we’d ride all day around Clent and Lickey, we’d ride on the road to get ice cream at Stourport, it was magnificent.

And we were all on pretty terrible bikes, my Emmelle only had 3 working gears out of 18, my mates Raleigh was heavier than the sun. Quill stems, rigid forks, terrible tyres, but it just didn’t matter. We worshipped my mate when he get a pair of RockShox Indy forks for his HT Timberline.

Happy, happy days.

This was my first 'mountain bike'. It was an upgrade from my road bike with flat handlebars and knobbly tyres!

Riding up to the axles in mud in Holywell Dene. All the time.
Riding up Deadwater Fell just for the plummet back down.
Getting lost in Thrunton Woods and riding into a pit of buried dead cows.

Just simple fun really.

I remember getting off my MX bike and thinking how the **** am I meant to ride this down something steep.
Plastic Exage brake levers I'm looking at you.😂
This was late 80's not early 90's.

Like others we were riding around on BMXs. We lived in a pretty flat part of the S.E, there weren't any trails or big hills or even much in the way of rideable woodlands anywhere without our riding distance. I had a bright orange Townsend, mate had an Emmelle with this marble-like paint job and oval chainring(s?). Don't think I enjoyed it as much as BMX. Also did the bunnyhopping small children/teenagers thing on the rec. There was a sheep field we snuck into where there were jumps we'd try to not wind ourselves on.

I was so into MTB'ing in the 90's! I remember my switch from an Altus equipped bike to a new one at Christmas.

It was an Univega Alpina 504 in Orange. Kitted out with STX-RC and SLX 27.

Within a year I had put on some Judy XC's (which I still have, actually still have the bike).

It ended up with Mavic 519's on XT hubs, full XT and Manitou X-Vert R's and HS33's. All orange and black. I loved that bike! I went to the hills in Spain on it. Crashed on a jump and then went to a sal****er water park after! Oh the pain!!!

Next year will be a project to strip it down, get a disc boss welded on to it and try and get some 26" straight steerer Fox Floats for it and then slowly rebuild it.

First MTB was around 91-92. I already had two road bikes so spend a huge Three hundred and fifty pounds on a Diamond Back Ascent with Deore LX. First rides were Middlewood Way and through Lyme Park - before the surface of Middlewood was sorted - we literly crawled through 6" of mud for miles.

We were a road club, but most of us went out and bought MTB's at the same time. One early trip was to Snowdonia, and Rangers and Llanberis path on rigids. Had a right blast.

I still have the bike, but it's been upgraded with a bit of XT here and there.

First rides were Middlewood Way and through Lyme Park

Ah, were local then, I grew up in Poynton and my first memories of great descents were down from Lyme Park to the Boars Head, then along the canal or Middlewood Way, down through The Coppice and then jumping all the verges down Dickens Lane 🙂

First Mtb was around 93-94, I swapped my Redline bmx for a mates Rockhopper. It blew me away how it well it rode and how far I could go, then it promptly got nicked.
I managed to save enough a while later to get a Scott Yecora from Cyc-Vibes in Exeter where I spent most of my free time watching whatever vids were on the tv in the shop with Daryll the owner and Keith Chegwin (of Sprung 1 fame) and ogling the shiny kit. This led to a swift upgrade journey of brake boosters, risers, DCD's and plenty of anodised baubles to help us blat off anything we could find.

Recently "scanned" (took photos of!) some old photos my ex found in a box. Here's me (no. 334) on my mate's borrowed Cannondale on the start line of my first XC race (I came 10th in Fun!). Finished with blood pouring from my elbow from crashing in the bombhole - probably a slight dip in the terrain, but rigid bikes weren't great in anything "technical" 😀
This was my 3rd borrowed bike - first was my dad's Al Carter, then a mate's Ridgeback (he stole it!). I had nowhere to keep my own bike in our 1 bed corner plot house.

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My son when out last weekend "What? you rode bikes with no front suspension?!?"

Found one of the Cannondale. (Just out of shot my Triumph Acclaim) My brother finally killed the 'dale crashing it into a tree - he rode motorbikes and didn't realise MTB calipers didn't actually stop you that well.
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Riding up to the axles in mud in Holywell Dene. All the time.
Riding up Deadwater Fell just for the plummet back down.
Getting lost in Thrunton Woods and riding into a pit of buried dead cows.

Just simple fun really.

This but without the dead cows!

Oooo Raleigh Maverick 2 sizes too big,

which one? I had the original red/purple one with sidepull brakes. Was an absolute PoS, but I loved it. Still can picture the swept back bars and cruising position.

I was riding around on MTBs for years before i ever went anywhere near a mountain. It was early 90s and it was all about having good kit and posing outside the amusement arcades (Southport, Merseyside)

Panaracer Fire XC Pros (including going crazy and fitting some super-wide 2.1s)
Elastomer forks
X-Lite Bar ends
Spending ages trying to balance the contact point on v-brakes

I had a Peugeot Ranger similar to the one in the photo on the first page but a 1987 one (I think....). Still remember taking it down the road and into the rugby club gravel car park and being amazed at how smooth it was! I could just sprint as fast as I could on the bumpy surface and be in control. In hindsight it was an absolute poo-heap 😀

That Specialized RockCombo is a bit of a missing link isn't it? Didn't know it had existed.

First bike was a purple specialized rockhopper in 92/3 bought from m steels in Newcastle, had a soft spot for specialized ever since. Moved to Arizona and took bike with me but bought a Marin pine mountain with a manitou m4 fork in 96. Happy simple days exploring everywhere. Still got the pine mountain frame, bit tatty but free to a good home ( and now in Kent ) ...

Panaracer Fire XC Pros

as still fitted to MrsIHN's bike...

It was all about the accessorising....

Coloured bolts, everything from brake cable hangers to x-lite crank caps, bar ends...

Now I'm all just ride it & keep everything pretty much as stock, no customization.

1993 I got my mum to drive me to Cycle Care in High Wycombe, test rode a Kona Lava Dome then slammed £540 of hard earned paper round money on the sales counter. My mums face was a picture. I will never forget that feeling of walking out of the door with the bike. I felt EPIC! I still own it.

Grew up on the edge of the Lakes and after BMX's and a couple of mail-order Hi-Ten steel BSOs that I ran into the ground, my parents realised I was seriosuly getting into biking and bought me my first 'proper' MTB - the grey & yellow Marin Palisades!

Main memory is going far further than the other kids in my village did, mainly a couple of villages over - 8-10 mile round trip - because there was a girl there I fancied. Never did get anywhere with her, but hey ho.

Other main memory is giving myself RSI in both wrists riding down Dash Falls descent on the Skiddaw Round...

Getting one of these for my 16th birthday (except the 1994 model in black):

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This was way cooler than my mate's Trek because his new MTB was rigid whereas this had the whopping total of 1" of elastomer travel (in summer, it dropped to about 1/4" in winter). Remember ragging it round the local woods and the park after school. So much more fun and capable than the basic audax style bike I'd had before.

I seemed to have the Mountain Bikes Maintenance and Repair book by Brant Richards & John Stevenson on near permanent loan from the library and I'd walk the long way round from school once a month to go to the newsagents and buy the latest MBUK. Also remember having a lot of Rox clothing!

Great thread 👍

Started doing longer off-road trips in the early 80s on my BMX when I realised that stunts and tricks were not my forte. By 1986 I got my first ATB/MTB, a 5 speed Raleigh Maverick with sidepull brakes. I have joked often that with those brakes, the centre ridge tyres and steel rims the braking off-road felt like an option I’d forgotten to tick the box of.

My next was a Dawes Ascent but despite a heady 15 gears and cantis it was also WAY too big! So by 1990 the sale of the Dawes and saving meant a real proper MTB arrived, a Fisher Celerity. That Fisher went through various guises including Gripshift, flexstem, bar ends and even singlespeed.

Great times and after my big bike theft last summer I’m currently reliving that time period on a 1997 Kona Fire Mountain 😎

Mint Sauce stickers on my pink onZa bar ends.

Coloured bolts, everything from brake cable hangers to x-lite crank caps, bar ends…

Now I’m all just ride it & keep everything pretty much as stock, no customization.

Very true. Every single thing on my early bikes was agonised over and changed. My current bike is stock apart from grips and a new BB. Not even changed the tyres yet.

Was thinking about it this afternoon, went from Spesh Rock Combo -> Claud Butler Kylami -> Kona Cinder Cone -> Spesh FSR XC -> Orange Sub5 -> Orange P7 -> Whyte T-130 S

Which is only 7 bikes over 31 years. Must try harder!

Ha, the opposite of this for me -

Being hugely unfit and overweight and struggling to ride up anything approaching a decent hill until I realised that the 28:38:48 and an 11:28 cassette that my cheapo Carrera came with weren’t really helping

Being in my early mid 20's and coming from a running background and road cycling (not competitive) I remember being able to get up anything all day long with that gearing, now I struggle with the wide range we have these days.

Riding rigid and and not feeling beat up (youth). Getting a Flexstem and thinking it was brilliant. Bar ends. Getting 2.1 tyres - ZMax's and thinking they were huge. Spending ages trying to toe-in canti brakes so they didn't squeal. Drooling over 'trick' bits in the local shop - Heffs in West Drayton. Waiting excitedly for the next issue of MBUK to hit the shops to see the latest kit. Getting Quadra 21R's and thinking they were brilliant. Just riding all day, and the next day. Riding anywhere and nobody minded. Riding and not seeing many people let alone another MTBer - my local trails are rammed these days ... happy days.

Back in 1987, as a teenager, travelling down to Shockwave in Nottingham to buy a Marin Bear Valley. Bought one after all the hype in the windsurfing mags.
Most of the importers then were the same companies that were importing windsurfing kit. Some of them fell by the wayside but most of them are still big players.
First ride was up and over Cutgate and back. Some of the rides we did looking back were mad.

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Tour of Jersey 1990

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COSMIC TOP TUBE PADS!!!!!

They may still be in the back of the loft. 😅
Along with the matching frame bag

Can't find a pic but we "mountain biked" even when we all had BMXs, then I got a Raleigh Marauder (with 18 speed SIS, bitches!) and then a carrera krakatoa with a rather lovely steel tange frame, mountain exage all over it, er, and a flexstem.

TBH even with my rosetinted glasses on, it was really pretty crap, but we had a great time anyway. Coming back to mountain biking 20 years later it was just totally different.

The bug bit for me at about 10/11 years old, so the start of the 90s.

A cheap "ATB" for Christmas one year- Universal Hill Street Cruiser, 2*5 Shimano Tourney.

Then a few years later another budget bike butt this time with 300gs, "piano keys" due to the shifters being black and white.

I scrimped save and saved to get a British Eagle ZFX two in British racing green. Reynolds 531 frame and tange forks, I remember upgrading parts to LX/XT and being chuffed to bits! And cutting bars down to what I imagine would be 500mm ish with daft long stems. That's the bike that I started p proper off road/lakes riding on. No proper gear, coz upgrades were cooler than having clothes. Heading out in the depths of winter with two pairs of tracky bottoms on and a woolly hat under your helmet!

Here is my DB in current form..

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83-86 was BMX.
I lived & breathed it. I was actually quite good at it. 😁
I’ve still got a chrome 92’ GT Performer with black coaster brake Tuff 2’s.
The kids laugh out loud when I fetch it out.

About 91, bought a Raleigh Dakota. It was miles too big. And crap. Eventually bought a cheap steel frame set to replace it. (The Dakota frame is encased in concrete on a drive in Rugeley). Ran that till I bought a British Racing Green Timberline. My brother still has it. Repainted silver with yellow Quadras, to look like a 95’ Zaskar with yellow Judy’s. 🙂 (God, what was I thinking...).
He’s promised to pass it back when he’s done with it. I can feel a restoration coming on...

And night riding, with Ever Ready lights. A full moon would see me out over Cannock Chase. This was a decade before the Follow the Dog was born. Happy days.

Fondest memory of those halcyon days...oddly enough a ride with my brother. I flatted & we stuffed the tyre with undergrowth to get us home. 🙂

Aah the 90s.. has to be racing at the Malverns classic in the 90s...

@Stevied "Bending the forks on my Raleigh Avanti on a large drop. Then replacing it with a team issue Dynatech Pro. Loved that bike…"

Classic - i had a Raleigh Massif and bent the forks on a fence. Got them replaced, then kept busting rear hubs so go a Dynatech Diablo LX - bloody loved that bike. Frame got damaged and Raleigh replaced it, but then it was nicked out of my garage. Got an M-Trax replacement through insurance which i took to Uni in London ... where it got nicked. Got replaced on insurance by another M-Trax, which i leant to my B-in-Law ... and it got nicked. Went without a bike for a long time after that, then got back into MTB a few years ago.

What I remember most about the '90s though was poring over MTBUK etc, agog at all that fluoro, bar-ends, flex-stems and imagining when i'd be old enough to take a bike somewhere with actual mountains! Lincolnshire wasn't too special.

Aah the 90s.. has to be racing at the Malverns classic in the 90s…

Think I still have my Mycycles shirt from the first event.

I was into riding miles and racing on my bmx with mates in the 80's. In the mid eighties I got a Peugot atb for my birthday new and rode that in urban environments to school and back etc. Then gave up riding about 1990. Returned in year 2000 and been riding since - so I missed the 90's. Spent them driving and raving so not all was lost.

I also did alot of body buuilding in the 1990's.

The 90s was basically my thirties, so marriage, children and work (career?). Ran a Stumpjumper, acquired in 87 (still have) the whole decade, it didn’t really go out of date. Brief forays with Maguras, a flexistem, and Answer elastomer forks (still have all of them!). Not like now when every three years and a bike and all its components become ‘dinosaurs’! Finished the 90s in 99 buying a state of the art Merlin with sus forks 100mm and V brakes because we still didn’t trust discs and hydraulics. Strangely the Merlin seems more dated than the 80s Stumpjumper now.
Nineties riding for me was lots of bridle paths, singletrack, ridge rides, long long rides. In my memory as ‘Mint Sauce’ like days and rides, good memories. Don’t remember feeling endangered ... also rode all weathers (not so many bikes out in the wet now). Riding now is often lots short tracks and back up the hill again, with the odd one I need ‘brace myself’ for. Can’t tell you how much it’s changed!

First shot on an MTB was riding my friend's Muddy Fox Courier downhill through a foot of snow in the Necropolis, winter 1987.

Holywell Dene

Whoa... roots. Do you remember the bombhole? 😎

Riding miles between various spots built on mine waste and along coast paths and going to Cornwall Mountain Bike Club Races with mates who could persuade their parents to take them to prove who was the fastest.

I may have been the last to get suspension, but went big with Marzocchi Z1 BAMs.

I was reminiscing with a mate the other day as we span up another fire road between sections of DH singletrack, that way back in the 'day' (early-mid 90s) our riding was the other way round - attempting to climb short 'technical' climbs and bombing it down fire roads.

Sold my Raleigh ultra burner sat in the garage to fund my sunburst red escort xr3i I thought I was done with bikes. Promptly lost my job. When my spoilt mate let me ride his 1990 team Marin (the one with the grey teflon paint and pink forks/stem) to the job centre I was hooked again, haven't looked back. Wish use kept the xr3i though...

After BMX, my first 'MTB' was a Raleigh Mustang:

Then I started racing XC in my teens on one of these:

After about 6 months, I upgraded the Raleigh Peak with a Rockshox Quadra.

I snapped an X-Lite bar-end on a downhill section of a race on Bodmin Moor. Trust me, that was classed as downhill (for XC) at the time.

X-Lite felt sorry for a young teen 'champ in the making' and replaced them both sent me some stickers.

My first decent bike was a KHS Montana pro. I could not believe how good it was for the price. The bars were as narrow as they could be.

All summer holidays were spent down Danbury common. It only had 1 bomb hole then, we called it the island.

Danbury and what they do now scares me 30 years later.

Last year I found the same bike for £20 it rides as good as I remember.