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Another major milestone passed for retrobike - our Fifth Anniversary :) Little did I think the site I setup following a vague idea and a low key meeting with a small handful of other retro fans in 2005 would have over 10000 users and be going from strength to stength five years on. Let's hear your favourite memories from the last five years, click here to add them in the forum. On a personal level there are almost too many to document. Will have a quick go -meeting a lot of cool people at various meets over the years -the fine community spirit on the forum. Having this with 10k plus users is a real credit to the membership -getting continued input on the site from genuine figures in the history of mtbing. Repack Rider is of course...

Let me take you back. The year is 1990. New Kids on the Block top the charts. England are cheated out of certain world cup glory (once again) by the Germans. Mountain Biking is 'cool' in the same way Yo-Yos, skateboards, BMXs and rubiks cubes were before. A callow 13 year old is promised one of these mountain bikes for his upcoming birthday. He duly receives a year old 23" Raleigh Mirage - just the ticket for a growing lad. The bike is collected and several months of fun riding round the Cotswolds are had until a collision with a rather large and firm tree permanently steepens the head angle of that first Raleigh. A spiralling upgrade path ensues (and stalls around 1995) which ultimately leads to the youth setting up a certain website...

Our 10000th user has just registered. When the site was setup just under five years ago thought we'd be lucky to get a few hundred....

Another year and another Mountain Mayhem has been and gone. Without a doubt this was the biggest and best retrobike turnout yet with the best weather at Eastnor since records began. For full aftermath and race reports please click here to read the thread in the forum. A few random highlights from retrobikers • Weather warm and dry (a tidy contrast to two hours of rain on Friday evening) • Superstrong on the 89 Mirage running (briefly) 3rd overall • Wu-Tangled running dead last • Tunes (eye of the tiger especially) • BBQ • The longest most nail biting game of garden jenga • Great show of retro steeds being thrashed • Quality tunes and heckling from the RB massif. "Use the beard" and "Don't climb on cheese"... • The endless climbs...

Just loading up the retrobike fun bus and will be over to Eastnor for Mountain Mayhem 2010 later this afternoon. Feel free to pop over and see us at the retrobike camp, just look for the big banner. Full details of this years plans can be found here > http://bit.ly/970pl4. If you can't make Mayhem don't forget you can follow the action (or lack of action) on the retrobike twitter feed @retrobike.

The latest in our series of 20 questions with...features ace UK lens man Seb Rogers. With more than 12 years experience and over 100 covers to his name, Seb is one of the world's best regarded pro bike photographers. He's been there pretty much from the beginning of the UK bike publication scene and you've probably not only stared in awe at his biking pictures in your fave mags over the years but also read his articles and tests as well, in publications such as MBUK, Mountain Bike World and What Mountain Bike to name but a few. So, for a different perspective on the bike world, Retrobike asks.... 1) Retrobike: Hi Seb, what are you up to at the mo? Seb Rogers: Several things at once, which is about par for the course! I've got the...

The May 2010 Photo of The Month (P.o.T.M.) contest was won by Easy Rier's 'The Wheel'. Now taking nominations for the June 2010 P.o.T.M. contest entitled 'Anything Retro Goes' here. Click here to see Easy Rider's shot in all it's glory 1. Easy Rider's 'The Wheel'

Everyone likes Old School and none more so than Retrobike and Morvélo Bicycle Apparel. Fat Tire Flyer was the original mountainbike magazine co-founded in 1980 by one of the pioneers of Mountain Biking Charlie Kelly. It's pages contain classic imagery of early off-road action and this cover from May/June 1984, a bike pile after one of the customary early April "Derby's" in Marin County, sums up the care free and fun loving attitude of the time. Retrobike and Morvélo liked it some much they got in contact with Charlie Kelly to see if they could run a limited edition t-shirt of it. Not only did he say yes, but he also re-scanned in the cover of the original for them to use. His fee? "Just make sure you send me one of the t-shirts!" he...

Executive Summary Brutal For those wanting a little more, this is the second in an increasingly egocentric set of ride reports (next up is my visit to the corner shop for a newspaper. And possibly a loaf of bread) so..... Long winded version Outside of the Grand Tours, the One Day Classics hold centre stage. And of those, the five 'Monuments' (Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Giro di Lombardia) are king. And separating out further are the cobbled classics - the Tour of Flanders (or Ronde van Vlaanderen if you want to go all Flemish) and Paris-Roubaix. And lets throw in Gent-Wevelgem for good measure. But the one that has always stood head and shoulders above the others, for reasons...

Geoffrey Cleland Apps, the UK mountain bike pioneer has been nominated for the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame - hopefully this year he will be voted in and a glaring omission corrected. Mr Apps was riding bicycles off road in the mid 60s and his unique take on the 'mountain bike' pre dates the Marin County pioneers by several years. If you don't know about Geoff Apps I suggest you read up about him and his bicycles here on retrobike, here on wikipedia or here and here in the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame. Graham Wallace, long time Apps aficionado has made the nomination and has gathered support from Bike Biz (read their article online here) along with such luminaries as Charlie Kelly and Gary Fisher. What can you do? Simple. Click here to...

The May 2010 'Anodized Special' Bike of The Month was taken by Nutallabrot's exceedingly clean Manitou FS. The Manitou will be featured in next month's mbr magazine and Nutallabrot will receive a year’s subscription to the magazine. The full results are as follows 1. Nutallabrot's Manitou FS 2. Stefan9113's Manitou FS 3. Racer X's Pace RC-200 Now taking nominations for the June 2010 BoTM here. Don't forget winner will receive a years mbr magazine subscription so get polishing those bikes! Click here for more details and full results The May 2010 Bike of The Month top three are as follows 1. Nutallabrot's Manitou FS Click here to see Nutallabrot's quite outstanding Manitou collection. 2. Stefan9113's Manitou FS Click here to...

Just uploaded a few new catalogues to the retrobike archive, one of the largest cycling resources on the web. -Klein Catalogues, click here. -Trek Catalogues, click here. -Independent Fabrication Catalogues, click here. Also running a poll on archive usage here, please take the time to vote.

The May 2010 Road Bike of The Month contest was won by Slotcar55's Agordina Cromovelato "80th year" a deserving and extremely rare winner. The full results are as follows 1. Slotcar55's Agordina Cromovelato "80th year" 2. Shamus' 1984 Colnago Master 3. wired99's 1983 Raleigh Gran Sport Now taking nominations for the June 2010 rBoTM here. Click here for more details and full results The May 2010 Road Bike of The Month top three are as follows 1. Slotcar55's Agordina Cromovelato "80th year" 2. Shamus' 1984 Colnago Master 3. wired99's 1983 Raleigh Gran Sport Click here to read more about wired99's Raleigh.

Once again Retrobike will be at Mountain Mayhem at Eastnor - and once again this will be our biggest and best year ever! The retrobike camp, trackside tent and show tent will be in one area this year and is not to be missed. Where will we be? Don't worry, you'll find us ;) Those of you racing this year should watch out for our retro-themed trackside tent of crazy supporters, listen out for those classic old schools tunes and party whilst you pedal! At Retrobike we don’t only party hard – we have over 40 riders in various teams and solo classes, making us probably the largest club in the event! All Retrobike riders will be on old school machinery and some still in their vintage race strips! So be sure to support the Retrobike riders out...

Get your old road irons polished up, shave your legs and don your Bolles as we're running a Retro Road Ride (AKA The Welsh Borders Grimpeur) on Saturday 24th July. What does it involve, I hear you cry? A stunning, scenic and undulating Sportive style 90 km ride on very quiet country roads with a country pub lunch/stop. There's plenty of climbing but nothing super steep so with a compact and a bit of fitness all should be fine. Where is it happening? The ride will start and finish in Hampton Bishop, just outside of the cathedral city of Hereford. Accommodation? If you want to stay over there’s a very good campsite about a mile and a half from the ride start/finish, plus good B&B option 3 miles away in the next village...

The retrobike man bags (laptop / messenger bags) have just arrived and quickly left Retrobike's Secret HQ nestled deep in the Warwickshire Alps. We have a small second batch of these arriving soon, the first batch having sold out within hours. Full details of the bags can be found on the Lowe Pro website here. Colours we have are black and brown as pictured. Price will be £27 posted in the UK. To order please register a firm interest in this thread here or via PM.

The weekend of 15th May saw the Bravehearts of MacRetro take on the Ten Under The Ben 10 hour mtb marathon. Read on to find out about their experiences (or click here for the aftermath thread). Part 1 - The Ken sets the scene Most of us set up camp early on Friday evening and headed of up the Aonach Mor gondola for our free meal and free very small malt whisky. On return the other happy campers had arrived, We had a beer or 2 whilst chatting out in the drizzle taking turns not to out wheelie Eck on his monster San Andreas. Someone had to lift me up to get on it. We eventually decided at around 11.30 to head off for a decent kip before our dawn rise. Unfortunately it was Dawn that kept us awake, her and her mates in a close by tent...