You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
As we head towards offering equity in Singletrack to help secure our future, it's got us reflecting on the past and the journey we've been on since starting out in 2001. It's also been great fun looking back through old back issues and checking out how far we've come in terms of MTB tech and, of course, fashion.
Mark is working on an article charting the changes in mountain biking through Singeltrack's history, and in the meantime we'd like you to head back into your archives, pull out your old negatives and boot up that ancient hard drive to find your favourite classic photos from way back when*.
Post your favourites below (either by uploading the image or sharing links) and we'll share a selection of our favourites next week!
*Even if you only first got on a bike a year ago, we want to see where your MTB story started!
Started back in 1987 for me as an alternative to windsurfing when there was no wind.
At that time it was difficult to buy one as most bike shops wouldn't stock them as they thought it was a fad
Bought a Marin Bear Valley from Shockwave who were more of a Windsurfing shop
Went to Jersey that year as a Windsurfing Club but we all took bikes
Big change for me was in 2002/3 when I bought my first Enduro and signed up for Singletracks Girlie Week with Bike Verbier
It's been all downhill since then. Quickly booked to go back as a family.
Back to now. My girls have grown up and are still riding
We have retired early due to Kevin's injury and I'm writing this after a day in the mountains in Val Di Sole
Pics from 1987, 2002 and today's
I scanned a load of old photos in last year and these are my best oldest ones
Cheshire classic organised by my old club Cheshire & Peak MBC. Number 216, on my Raleigh ascent. Huge gate thing but it was a pretty nice lugged frame with decent bits. This was probably 1994ish
Trip up Helvellyn in the snow. This was a total epic - rode out from Keswick we were very unprepared and ended up freeriding across trackless snowy slopes down to Thirlmere. Placcy bags over winter socks and xc spd shoes! This must have been around April 1994 as on the way home we learned that Kurt Kobain had shot himself on the news on dad's car radio
Full (ish) send out of Malverns bombhole, before sending was a thing. Again circa 1994ish 
Digging/riding tracks in Macclesfield forest over summer holidays while at uni. This'll be about 1997 and was before Ratboy had cottoned onto it
Skinning up on mastiles lane. This'll be about 1999
I haven't got a single picture of my early MTB years (I bought a Giant CFM1 in 1992) because taking a camera out in the filth of MTB wasn't going to happen. The pics I have got were events with official photographers and even then the number and quality is low. Here's one from the Raid Pyrénées Gascongne in 1998. Some teams had started using the old "black brick" garmin GPS but I still used IGN maps and held on to the tall guy's camel back to avoid crashing while reading the map in full flight. We weren't the fastest but finished fifth thanks to not getting lost.
The bike park at the Winter Triathlon world championships in Les Menuires also in 1998:
And half of me in the race. Crazy race: the X-C ski course was cut into the Olympic descent hill by the piste basher and by the time we got to it it was freezing slush and dark - 28th and best Brit IIRC being one of the last to make the tight cut off time on the MTB.
December 2005, Specialized M4 Stumpy. Madame out training for Winter triathon when the skiers had gone home.
This is my first mountain bike, pictured in late 2006, by which time I'd had it for 10 years. I retired it shortly after. The only original bits by then were the frame, seatpost clamp, front derailleur and handlebars.
2006 was peak MTB forum year, in my case mainly BikeMagic through between bans I also posted on STW. 😉 One of the stars of the period is on the right in this pic taken on Clent. Who is it? clues include riding in walking boots, a head torch in daylight... . Thanks to all who contributed to my UK holiday that year.
The mid 2000s were the boom period for raids (adventure races) Roc somethings and Trans somethings. We did every edition of the Roc d'Ossau of which half were on the tandem, did the Roc d'Euskadi and here the Raid Pau Gourette:
Does this count. In 1973 my parents were worried that I disappeared off all day on my bike so one night my father's work colleague who was in the CTC knocked on our door and invited me out with the club. From that point on three times a week and every holiday I rode with the club. The bits I liked most were "rough stuff", there was even a "fellowship" for it. So mountain biking before mountain bikes were a thing aged 13: phot credit Paul Davis - the inventor of the granny ring; he bolted a freewheel sprocket onto a normal chainset to get a low bottom gear and published the idea in Cycle Touring.
Probably around 1997 at Thrunton woods trail hound in the background. Don’t have any from 87 when I first started.
McMoonter wearing classic gear of the period.
Saracen Conquest...
Impressive colour cordination, Drac. Even the hound fits in with the green, white, black, red theme. 🙂 I bet your helmet was a different colour so you took it off for the pic. 😉
I think my helmet was also black and red. 🙂
One of the stars of the period is on the right in this pic taken on Clent. Who is it? clues include riding in walking boots, a head torch in daylight...
I seem to recall you having an ongoing bromance with Dylan Turvey.
This is the oldest photo I can access from my phone, a scanned in slide from 1995. Khunjerab Pass, ****stan-China border. I'd bussed up from Islamabad to Gilgit with my Clockwork on the roof, then spent three weeks poking around dirt tracks up glacial valleys. Lacking a Chinese visa, the ****stan border guards agreed to drive me up to the border in their jeep then left me to ride back down, scooping up the passport I'd left with them en route. Interesting enough experience that I went back with a visa five years later, riding over into the part of China where I'd end up living for the best part of ten years.
Yup, Monty, Dylan, I enjoyed reading your reporting from China as you observed the transition from a bike to car based society. Are you still in touch with your doctor friend?
Some pics from wayyy back in the day, when STWers down south used to socialise (2010/2011) 🙂
(a rocketdog, a jedi and a richpenny, amongst others IIRC)
(philconsequence arranged this. Whatever happened to..?)
(A poddy and a WCA, amongst others)
(Bullheart on the left 🙁 )
(2011 that one. Dunno these names, but it was a nice day at Swinley)
I have very few pics of me riding from the 1990s - it wasn't the done thing. Got load of pics of bikes stood against things, but they're not very interesting!
A couple from SITS 2005 - think our team finished in the top 20...
A couple from when we did the Coast to Coast in 2003 - first image was used as a STW website header image at the time, 2nd is me carrying bike up Black Sail Pass...
I am hoping @stirlingcrispin sees this and starts posting some classic images.
Earliest picture I have online is from around1987/88 though I'd been MTBing for a good two or three years before that.
Raleigh Technium somewhere on Snowdon.
Then this one from a NEMBA race at Bosley a couple of years later on an Alpinestars.
Then jumping forwards to a more modern bike a Santa Cruz Blur in Verbier in 2005
The beginning (and end) of my attempted MTB world domination was around this time (1990ish):
My early racing career (I’m on the left) at the Malverns (95 I think). That white onZa porc gripped like anything.
Diamondback Outlook. From when men were men and sheep were nervous. I'd hate to hang a date on this, early 90s maybe?
I beat him 😎
Edit: but there is no chance I would have passed a piss or breathalyser test 😂
1989 was when I bought my first MTB, an Emmelle Cortina, when I moved to Ayr. Spent 3 years earning a PhD and exploring the gravel tracks of the Galloway Hills. One Sunday I stumbled across a local cyclist who then posted an invite through my door to ride with the local CTC group.
After years of cycle touring in the US and the UK (including 4 months and 6,000 miles around Britain and Ireland) I moved to Stirling. My touring bike was used for roughstuff riding - including a ride with George and Margaret Berwick, swinging their tandem off fences as we explored Upper Glendevon.
My proper MTB journey started in 2000 when I decided that an MTB would be a better way of exploring the local forestry tracks and putting a small website together. At the same time the IT guy at work I make contact with his son, @DickBarton .
Here are some photos from that journey:
George Berwick of the Rough Stuff Fellowship on the Elie chainwalk (not my photo).
Stirling Bike Club do Meikle Bin - May 2002.
We rode there, got lost in the forestry, did the hill, stopped at the hotel, and rode home....
I used to get through a set of v-brake pads every week.
Stirling Bike Club on top of Ben Cleuch - January 2004.
@A11y turned up in shorts and DickBarton turned back with a newbie lass who'd gone over the bars into a bog.
Kenny Wilson (Falloffalot) riding Andrew Gannel in May 2005.
Kenny had one of the early MTB route websites and wrote the book Mountainbike Scotland - The Highlands.
DirtyGirlOnaBike (DGOAB) and the Edinburgh mob joined us for this ride.
Some of the earliest photos I have hosted online already:
One of the earliest photos I took when I was trying my hand as a photographer
This one won me a "Powered by Pies" riding shirt in a Bikemagic photo competition judged by Seb Rogers. I just love the light. I gave the shirt to Monksie as he did us a massive favour when we moved house.
This one was *so* close to being a cover image but the focus on Mrs NBT's face wasn't quite sharp enough
A fun day out learning about remote flahses while Marwood tested the inbred that I'd just finished building for him
Love this one, featuring forum regular @crazy-legs, along with @richpips and @mini-pips (no longer quite so mini)
The inaugural (and so far only) Singletrack tandem weekender, in the days when Mrs NBT and I rode off-raod tandem
Chipps showing his utter faith in Beate at that same event
And the one that sums up the forum, the pootles - big group rides where we all encouraged each other, had fun, ate cakes and even on occasion got married.
I’m old enough to remember the days of the Inbred Jihad. Strangely, there’s not much mention of that when you search Google…
Great pics people, thank you.
Love it!
Someone must have pics from Jockstock?
Not super early but must have been 2001/2? Singlespeeds and way too much to drink - both equally key to early STW.
These are all brilliant, thank you so much! I'll be picking a selection to share on our socials this week.
Here's four from twenty years ago, a year or two after I joined STW -
And three from ten years ago -
[img] 
[/img]
[img] 
[/img]
[img] 
[/img]
Rocketdog stole my photo! 😀
These are all brilliant, thank you so much! I'll be picking a selection to share on our socials this week.
i really should check the images I don’t have online, I bet there’s a few even older that what I posted
Not enough likes for this
These are the White Rim Trail in Utah. Taken in 1994 showing myself mrs Ampthill and Doug in the back ground of one shot. We road without a support vehicle which is tough as there are just 2 places you can get water from the rivers
Ecuador - 2002. Mike and me at end with pacific behind us. Me on hte right. Was I ever that thin! Note my tyre choice and aesthetics game was strong even back then 🙂
First photo was I think my first Peaks ride (after doing a bit on a fully rigid when growing up near by) on a proper MTB.
Second one was first (and only) US trip. Wow Moab was a bit of a step up from the Chilterns
Third - first FS that Santa Cruz and it spent a week on wet roads and sand from memory. Think that's the oldest photo I have of me "riding". I try to stay out of the way of the lens if I can!