[Closed] Nostalgia

Riding on the South Downs for hours at a time and never seeing another mountain bike and being stared at by walkers in disbelief rather than being scowled at in disapprovement. Circa 1986

Fully rigid bikes with old school steep geometry and rubbish tyres making relatively benign trails seem very tricky indeed *. Strangely quite nostalgic for that. And Onza Ules grips. In yellow.

* Good example that comes to mind was early CyB. I think it was on the section down to the road crossing. There were a few slippy steps in the trail followed by a sharp bend. God knows how many times I came off on that. Sure now it probably wouldn't even register as being an obstacle!

20mm axles
Panaracer
Coloured braided brake hoses
150mm bikes that weighed 33lb plus
36 hole rims and hubs

The only thing that was better back then was the fact you could ride cheeky without anyone realising it was cheeky.

Other than that I don't think nostalgia is what it used to be.

- Full-page adverts for Animal watches in MBUK, featuring Adele Croxon in white/black/orange race-gear.
- Pace one-piece stems.
- Anodised bottle-cage bolts.
- Primalwear jerseys with a tree-frog on them

Cutting your 620mm bars down to 590 then adding bar ends & wondering why the handling got "twitchy"

Buying a judy xc with 63mm of travel but really wanting a DH with 80mm!

Wearing a smoke & dart down to the casing as you used them for everything, not conditions specific tyre swapfest we have now

And Onza Ules grips. In yellow

Not to mention purple anodized brake boosters.

Clear grips with MBUK stickers underneath

Fully rigid bikes with old school steep geometry and rubbish tyres making relatively benign trails seem very tricky indee

For me it's the lack of complexity of it all. No bike or tyre choice, no trail centres, you just rode your bike on local trails.

Kona Scratch and Sniff.
Mojo cable straddle.
Club Roost.
DCD.

Etto Helmets
John Tomac
Tim Gould
Allsop Freeride
Triangular frame bags
Cosmic trail gear
Onza Porcupines
Pace everything

Oakley stickers
Hanging around at LBS eating cake & fettling
Smashing pumpkins
Going [i]everywhere [/i]by bike
Being a bit crap, but it didn't matter
You either liked the ride of a Kona, Spesh, or Cannondale and just got on with it* - none of this mind numbing level of variables that you can buy into now , that really make sod all difference!

*Blagging swaps for an XT mech/X-Lite bar ends etc aside 🙂

Crud Catchers
Luminous Yellow Magura HS33s
Tioga DH 2.3s
Mavic 121 rims
Marzocchi Z1 Bams
X Lite "fly" stem
THe original DMR trailstar
Square taper cranks with coke can shims
Running one tyre inside another for extra puncture resistance
Those riser bars with a bolt on brace across the middle (can't remember the brand)
Downhill races in Grizedale forest

Going everywhere by bike

😀

The GCSE exam leave glory days. Cycling for what seemed like miles to sit around eating sweets and drinking pop before cycling miles back home. Never actually did any proper riding.

Cutting your 620mm bars down to 590 then adding bar ends & wondering why the handling got "twitchy"

even back in the early 2000's you'd struggle to find flat bars 600mm+

back in the day 580mm was wide and you cut them to a race length of 540mm for added excitement.

Cycling to Coniston lake with a ramp strapped to your back so you can spend an afternoon jumping off the pier/trying to stop your bike from sinking.

20mm axles
Panaracer
Coloured braided brake hoses

Still got those on my SS.

This is a big part of why CX has got popular recently IMO. People with crap trails on their doorstep using inappropriate bikes to make them interesting.

This. +lots. They're good fun though.

The yellow and white paint and red graphics on my first ever mountain bike, a 1988 Raleigh Maverick. Lusting after a pair of Farmer John tyres. Eating dried bananas and drinking Complan on Polaris events.

The GCSE exam leave glory days. Cycling for what seemed like miles to sit around eating sweets and drinking pop before cycling miles back home. Never actually did any proper riding

Haha this rings a lot of bells, cycle for miles on road, stop in village shop and fill rucksack with wham bars, head for small patch of woods and repeatedly session small jump and gorge on sugar.

My body from the 90's

even back in the early 2000's

Hahaha! That's not old school!

Orange Clockwork fully rigid
Onza HO-TI pedals
Trans alp saddle
Purple bling (coming back!!)
Bright Lycra
Smoke & Dart tyres
Hair (had some then!)
Canti Brakes
Crap 1" Headsets & Quill Stems

How to avoid nostalgia- I still own my 90s mtb, it wasn't bad at all in 92, in 2015 it's complete shit. (though, the exage hubs will never die). Dead on arrival, the 90s revival

Onza Chill Pills

Buying a judy xc with 63mm of travel but really wanting a DH with 80mm!

Really wanted a pair of yellow Judy SL's. Somehow ended up with Girvin forks that weighed a tonne and spoiled the geo (still in the back of my shed somewhere.)

If we're talking nostalgia... and I apologies for this in advance... Paolo Pezzo's boobies (I was quite young at the time 😳 )

Rox T-shirts; "Gravity. I fought the law, but the law won" was a particular fave 😉

If we're talking nostalgia... and I apologies for this in advance... Paolo Pezzo's boobies (I was quite young at the time )

😀

Paolo Pezzo's gold plated Gary Fisher after she won the olympics.....

Rob Warner throwing coke cans and plastic bags out of his van window is probably one of the best scenes in any mountain biking film produced.

@Northwind - I too still own my 90s MTB - '98 M2. Still have quite a lot of stuff mentioned above ^ if not on the bike then in the shed - 580mm flat bars, frame bags (yellow Specialized one), it had Judy T2s with 63mm travel but has a bit more now. I get on fine with it (bar the tyre clearance and lack of rear disc).

and a '93 Kilaeua in SS guise..

🙂

ramblers asking about your bike with genuine interest

doing everything on just one bike

britain being crap at cycling

oh, and on topic --
power strips ? (bridging the gap from toe straps and SPDs)
sharks fin to stop chainsuck
anodised stuff - still have the bottle cages (OK) and bolts (hm)
Minoura ? accessory bar, clamps on to bars for lights, computer..
change of tyre when they wear out..

ramblers asking about your bike with genuine interest
doing everything on just one bike

Those riser bars with a bolt on brace across the middle (can't remember the brand)

Club roost?

Club roost?

Yeh, I think that was them. That's what initially came to mind. But then they did some that had a welded brace aswell I think?

Sachs Wavey shifters........

Jesus, a whole load of the stuff up there is still on my bikes, and there's a whole load more I've not even caught up with yet. 150mm bikes? My nostalgia is just about managing not to spunk an entire year's student loan on some Mag21 SLs at Newnham Park.

I remember crap tyres, crap brakes, crap shifters, watching Tomac on the Pipeline, purple bits, having the time to clean bikes properly, the invention of the Camelbak, shoes that were purple and green and yellow and blue, a hopelessly ineffective Bula jacket (still got it), grey tyre rubber, the Onza Octopus, brake booster horseshoes, proper mad-ass custom paintjobs, dowhilling at night with a Petzl Zoom, using cubes of jelly as ride food, wading for half the night through waist-deep snow on Dartmoor carrying the bike slowly back to a Jamaica ginger cake in the car somewhere near the Princetown beacon, and buying a pair of Oakley Sub Zeros. Happy days.

the gullibility of consumers buying utter rubbish and their doe-eyed acceptance of mediocrity.

Newnham Park itself!
Great memories there trying to do the 2nd river crossing and getting totally submerged + loosing my bike as the china clay pits had turned the water white!

I love the kit we have now, I've no desire to go back but because the 90's was when I got into it I just can't help being very nostalgic for the period. In no particular order.

Onza grips

Club Roost finishing kit (once swapped a suspension stem for a blue club roost riser bar, I knew I was winning when I made the trade. Bars are still fitted to my old GT in the garage)

Primary colours. I wanted everything in red or yellow.

Craving Rock Shox forks then getting Quadra 21R's and realising they didn't much work.

Jason McRoy's death.

Steve Peat, Rob Warner, Will Longdon and others.

Lusting after a GT LTS or STS.

Wanting a Kona more than the GT that I (or more accurately my parents) could afford.

Loving my Marin hardtail (a '94 or '95 Hawk Hill) despite the fact it was about ten sizes too big for me. It had matching purple bar ends so who gave a stuff what size it was.

All brakes were crap. Even people with expensive brakes thought they were crap.

The invention of the V-Brake was a game changer.

Making some really great friends but not sticking with it when cars and driving became part of life.

Daves Chain Devices

Crud Catchers

Rox T-Shirts

Mint Sauce

Being involved in something that was about to get even bigger but living in a small rural village with seemingly no way to access it.

Paolo Pezzo indeed.

Wishing I'd spent even more time on the bike when in reality I spent most of my teenage years on the bike anyway.

Might have had the bikes, had a few tools and a helmet but in general lacked any wet weather kit of any use so as a teen I was a total fair weather biker, unlike now whereas I'll go out in anything.

Sure there's a few other things but those spring to mind. I wouldn't want to go back, but those were good riding years with much fun but the truth is now I can access more trails, amazing kit and see way more than I could between 94 and 2000 when I did the bulk of my MTBing before returning to it a few years ago.

Wearing a rim down enough to cracking them under braking
Removing the bar brace and the bars bending
Pulling on the brakes and not stopping
Having mtb kit which was basically the road kit rebadged
Strong light cheap pick 2 being a tough choice, now the cheap kit is stronger and lighter than some of the old expensive kit.
People complaining about these new riders who didn't get the heritage
The rose tinted lenses

If we're talking nostalgia... and I apologies for this in advance... Paolo Pezzo's boobies (I was quite young at the time )

😆

Me too!!!! 😳

[URL= http://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/s554/Wookster31/Mobile%20Uploads/E47E0F35-51E2-4553-B8D2-81E42469F816_zpszndiqelw.jp g" target="_blank">http://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/s554/Wookster31/Mobile%20Uploads/E47E0F35-51E2-4553-B8D2-81E42469F816_zpszndiqelw.jp g"/> [/IMG][/URL]

This one!! Made a 14 year old me very happy!! 😆

The early 90's UK and US race scene and all the personalities: Tomac v Frishnekt, Furtado, David Baker, Tim Gould, Caro Alexander, Julie Dibbens (?), Barrie Clarke, Giove, Tinker etc.
Grundig WC 1993 at Plymuff (where I put down my age 'incorrectly' on the race entry form) and managed to get entry into the WC qualifier. Iirc Dave Baker also had to enter the qualifier. Got dropped before the first river crossing which technically wasn't even out of the start funnel. I got a good cheer from the crowds as I skidded down the pipeline on my fully rigid Hahanna.

Ringle
The emergence of full suss: Ritchey flexi-chain stays (or was it Cannondale?)
'L' shaped anodised purple or blue bar ends

For me the '90s were riding Llangollen, Ruabon etc on a bike with a heady 50mm of suspension that cost me my whole 1st year student loan.
The switch from canti to v brake, the feeling of power seems daft today.
Freezing not only brake but gear cables riding in the winter.
Ron hills.
Sticking a gold Troy Lee peak on my Bell helmet and being called Tron by my riding busies for years even after I got rid of it.
Riding my mates Sintese full suss and thinking it was awesome as I bounced up and down kerbs.
Other mates Pro Flex stopping being suspension in the winter.
Riding Llandegla before it was a trail centre (anyone else remember 'mud valley', the trail through it to the aqueduct that ran straight down from the sleeper bridges?)
First trip to Coed y Brenin, sitting in the little shed type building Sian and Dafydd's cafe was in hoping the torrential rain would stop as I hadn't brought wet weather gear.
Poring over the adverts in MBUK and drooling over stuff in Alf Jones in Wrexham.
God, I could go on......
Halcyon days. So glad I was there for them.

Raleigh 531 frame with a Jackson Pollock paint scheme and XT.

Etto helmets 🙂

Using those animal watchstraps as a trouser clip for my baggy jeans
Those red DX v brakes and levers
Azonic shorty stems

[img] http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/download/file.php?id=62539 [/img]
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]

I miss:

1) The simplicity of older bikes

2) Huge XC race fields, the big crowds and ensuing parties.

Biopace chainrings.
Nike Poobahs!

Farmer John tyres

^These

And I also really wanted a Flexstem as I couldn't afford a decent fork.

Huge XC race fields,

I really miss this, couldn't believe how small the XC scene is when I got back into riding a couple of years ago - seems like the big fields have migrated to cyclocross - get a similar feel racing that as when i used to race youth and junior back in the day.

In a similar vein to PP's boobies, I distinctly remember the 'blue' bit of Chainspotting - just the thing for a teenage boy 😳

The switch from cantis to V-brakes was crazy, I had te red DX ones to match my red dx pedals 🙂 I also remember being crazy jealous of my friends magura hydraulic rim brakes.

Also spent so much time trying to hop on and off pallets, trials style, emulating hans rey and the two martyns

How about going out for a night ride with one of those mahoosive halogen lamp, running on 2x C batteries and producing so much light, that you could see more less the whole 3 metres ahead of you? 😆

I remember buying a Yuasa lead acid battery from Maplin and wiring it to a car fog lamp from a scrappy, mounted on a bodged bracket. It was *rubbish* 🙂

Purple, lots of purple..... purple socks, purple ear warmer, purple ron hill waterproof. Oh, and before I got any padded cycling shorts I wore 'Global Hypercolor' shorts....remember them....changed colour with the heat from your body. What was I thinking?
Massive Duracell lights that took 2 D batteries each - 2 on the bars and one on the seatstay (still got them in the shed somewhere).
Smoke and Dart.
Getting my first suspension forks - RS Quadra 10.

I still have my purple and green 'porelle drys' waterproof socks - still just about keeping my feet dry too!

Bullmoose bars.

Bolting racks all over the bike, and bash bars under the BB and over the derailleur. Proper Iron ones too, possibly made in a school metalwork lesson.

Wondering why, after all this, a puny fifteen year old could get so tired after lugging a 30lb bike with another 10lb of junk bolted on it all round the forest, day after day on the long summer after O levels.

Becoming very fit very quickly, racing said monster bike in cyclocross all winter.

The stupidity of youth eh?

Alanis Mortisette.

Big adverts for Wheelbase in MBUK and getting my Mom to order pedals from them.
MTB Pro.
Dirt, still the only mountain bike video that really makes me wants to get out there and ride with my mates.
BASEjump pedals by Rob Warner.
Buying my first pair of DMR V12's and them being a revelation after the above.
Bike '95/96/97 at the NEC.
Buying heavy, high rise, narrow Profile carbon bars from there.
V-brakes completely changing the braking world. Disks were better still but v-brakes were a revelation.
Jez Avery.
The Malvern Classic.
Rox t-shirts.
Palmer on an M1 with stars and stripes livery.
Tricks and Stunts with Martyn Ashton and Martin Hawes.
Rob Warner winning the UK's first. DH world cup race (Kaprun I think).
Lusting after a Pace RC200,
Spending all my money in Halesowen Cycles.
120mm stems being the norm.
Riding the trails around Alpe D'Huez in about 1994 with a guy who I later found out was a legend of the first UK racing scene. I can't remember his name but saw him mentioned by Nick Craig in an article in MBUK 10 years ago. I remember talking to him about suspension forks and him being adamant it was only for DH.
Answer Flat Foot shoes with the original red DX SPD pedals.
Onza Ules and sticking them on with my Mom's hairspray.
Creaking, flexy square taper cranks and BB's.
Barrie Clarke and Paul Hinton.

I could go on...

Pretty much why I ended up with a Zaskar, never could ride it like Hans Rey though. Forward to 3 minutes or so for showing off new rim brake blocks then testing them on a ski slope.

Answer Flat Foot shoes with the original red DX SPD pedals.

I missed this off my list. I loved those pedals.

Answer Flat Foot shoes

The original blue and black ones, I hope?

Hmmmm...Bula hats for slalom markers? Isn't it? Wasn't it?

The original blue and black ones, I hope?

Those were the ones I had, bought on recommendation from one of the mags at the time and, shock horror, they were really good.

lunge -
For me it's the lack of complexity of it all. No bike or tyre choice, no trail centres, you just rode your bike on local trails

Many things, but that comment sums a lot of it up.

Also simple nolstalga for my youth, everything was new and exciting back then including MTB's..

Wearing a rim down enough to cracking them under braking

Yep!

Malverns
Bob's Bash
Cleeve Hill
Bullet Bros chain tensioner
Zip-tieing a noose around my fork steerer and front straddle wire as I was paranoid of a front tyre/straddle cable interface . . . just me? 😳
Scott Unishocks . . . boing!!
Blue and pink Sidis
Local Motion Dominators

Fairly extensive list, just to add;

Marzocchi DH3
Cornwall Mountain Bike Club events in farmers fields.
Jumps amongst mine waste.
Ballistic Suspension.
Xxyzyx forks (or whatever it was) with stancions like beer cans.
Mountain Cycle
Amp Research

I wanted a Rockhopper but couldn't afford it then the Muddy Fox Courier came out .. on returning from a summer in Peru in 1987 I bought one and loved it. until I saw a Fisher Hookooekoo. That was brilliant. Took it to Ladakh for the best trip ever.

Don't know why I opened this thread. Very disappointing. Nostalgia - not as good as it used to be...

IGMC.

Klein paint jobs
RST Mozo pro and RS Indy forks (both of which were too expensive for me)
AVID Arch rival brakes
wanting a gold Kona Pohoehoe so bad I contemplated a loan for one, then bottled it.

I still have an old killi flyer with rst mozo pro w forks they cost a fortune new and now they seem rubbish if still light.
Some things I do miss like shimano threaded headsets that just worked a never came loose

And maybe I should not admit to this but still build most of my own wheels with purple nipplles as a little reminder of lazy summer days racing my mates in the SAMS xc series.

I'd forgotten about chain spotting now off to find a download

Mavic rims (231?) with super narrow brake track - My mrs was constantly putting flat spots in them, so every weekend seemed to consist of trying to stop the brake pads rubbing through the tyre.

Conti Cross Country 1.5 tyres if it was a fast course.

Original Judy XCs. Then Pace MXCD the next year.

Sachs Quartz groupset.

Many hours of swearing trying to fit a "Power Spring" to a Shimano rear mech.

World Championships where we sent a full team even if they weren't likely to make the podium.

World Championships with 175 riders in the women's race (see above).

Jez Avery.

I remember a downhill at Eston where he started 1 minute after my wife. On the start line she got a slightly menacing "Are you next? Because I'M behind you..." She never saw him on the course, and in the results he was a whole second faster 🙂

[img] [/img]

Meeting Tinker Jaurez at Newnham World Cup

Leith Hill, Peaslake, Wendover etc in the 90's early noughties....

Sigh....

Mavic 217s in sunset
purple anodised shite
acor skeewers
Shite cantis
awsome V brakes (I prefer wheeling my 1998 saracen killi as my awesome parallel push xt Vs and my speed dials (2.0 dontcha know) give better modulation than my discs

CNC machined stems [img] [/img]

heres my 2 retro steeds[img] [/img]

its been well ridden and is a bit of a bitsa some stuff came off my 1995 taho but I love it, even if it tried to kill me,

still ride it occcasionaly should take it to a MNPR

and my o/hs Sunn[img] [/img]

oh and Dirt on VHS, the number of times me n my mates watched that end sequence whilst giggling hysterically must be in the 000s

I miss having the time to ride whenever I wanted.
I miss the riding buddies I had in Devon , Surrey and on the South Coast.
I miss deciding with which bunch to ride.
Now riding is mainly a solo project tagged onto commutes or quick blasts while dinner is in the oven.
However, it's still riding a bike and it's still fun.

I miss my old proflex 995 which I bought after a long drive to Caversham. I think the shop was called Mountain High? It cost me a fortune back then and a week later I went back for the girvin forks. All because I saw it on the cover of a mountain bike mag and fell in love with it. I sold it around 2005 on ebay to an old guy who wanted a pootle around bike for £150 and he loved it. It was still pretty much immaculate

I missed out the endless hours fitting over priced srp bolts in my first post oh and maybe lusting after a disc drive wheel

Kona paint jobs. My burnt orange coloured koa had an absolutely bomb proof coating, whereas my gt karakorum paint peeled off when the dog licked it. Both were amazing bikes at the time though, especially after riding a raleigh ascender for a year.