(1984-2014) 30 years of UK mountain biking.

[jaypee]

Re:

Surprisingly there is no cross-over between the people posting on these two posts. Let me introduce you to some like minded fellows:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=294018&p=2203203&hilit=eclipse+30&sid=adcd32ac8d8861163051d36227dd077c#p2203203

 

[mrkawasaki]

I took the bike I have to Overbury's shop in Bristol a couple of years ago now and managed to speak to both the old lady (Mrs Powell) on the counter - who showed me a clippings folder with old brochures, reviews and racer reports - and then Andy Powell himself emerged from a back room. I was aware they had a somewhat terse reputation, but I must have come on the good day! Andy admired the condition of the bike before showing me where the serial number was and then deciphering it for me - hence the confirmation of the build date information of 'sometime before May 1984'.

Another speculation on my part is that I believe Andy was perhaps 'prototyping' with what were essentially custom(er) one-offs, before deciding on building the first Overbury's range GJW mentions. Maybe if he and the shop road riders were aware/part of the early ATB activities, some seeds were sown before the bigger manufacturers took action?

I wish I had asked if they remembered who the original customer of my bike was - all I know is that I bought it off a fellow in Edinburgh called Nick at Eastsidebikes - here's his ad text from 2010:

Early 80s MTN Bike Frame/fork/Headset for Sale £250 posted ono (UK)

Andy Powell Of Overburys in Bristol, Early British Made Frame/Fork and shimano 600 Headset, seatpost, and Overbury saddle. B.B. not included. Reynolds 501 23in.Frame Number AP(andy P), 84(1984), 37(frame number). Its Lugged with Haden (british made )luggs.501 ATB Tubeset. The first MTB Specific Tube Set. It was top of the line at the time and was spec with Stonglight MTB Crank, Specialized Retro Bars , Deerhead Shimano Mechs, Suntoure Top Mount Shiters Diacomp Brakes. A way earlier piece of MTB History, than the one on Ebay, And Way Nice Lugged frame.

'MB' = Mountain Bike? I cannot believe there are another 36 of these so suspect '37' relates to all AP builds of that year. Maybe a 1984 Andy Powell road bike owner might be able to add information about serial numbers that would corroborate? Unfortunately the seller wound up splitting the package but I managed to get most of it bar the crankset and shifters.

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/gallery2/v/u ... ndypowell/

 

[mrkawasaki]

Re. above.

Just found an AP-built 753 road bike from the same year. The serial composition on this lovely machine may add weight to my '37' = total builds of a range of machinery by Andy deduction.

http://pancalencycles.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... -andy.html

 

[legrandefromage]

keep 'em coming!

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Another speculation on my part is that I believe Andy was perhaps 'prototyping' with what were essentially custom(er) one-offs, before deciding on building the first Overbury's range GJW mentions. Maybe if he and the shop road riders were aware/part of the early ATB activities, some seeds were sown before the bigger manufacturers took action?

It is logical that an Andy Powell branded bike would preceed the Overbury branded bikes because once the decision to promote bike as Overbury's was made, all the effort would have gone into prototyping and building up stocks. maybe your bike was a prototype? Or even a bike built for a customer that introduced Overbury's to the idea of making mountain bikes?

This is what happened at Robert's cycles, where in 1981, a US customer commissioned them to build him a mountain bike.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Very early on in 1984 I started researching mountain bikes after seeing two Ritchey Montare bikes At the London Bicycle Company shop in Long Acre, Covent Garden. As there were no mountain bike magazines the only way to find out about these bikes was to visit bicycle shops around London and to ask about these bikes. A few shops had far eastern made bikes, others said they knew of mountain bikes and were expecting deliveries, but most had not heard of them. I had only recently moved to London and spent the next few months exploring the city and visiting most of the bike shops listed in the Yellow Pages.

A Dawes dealer gave me the brochure shown below that included a double page about the Dawes ranger that says that they were 'the first British made bicycle of its type' . He said that he had ordered some Rangers and that they should arrive in April but they didn't arrive until June.
I was keen to buy British and was told by the staff at 'The Cut' store the date when some F.W. Evans branded mountain bikes would be arriving at their Kingston Cycles shop. I went over on the allotted day to have a look at these newly arrived bikes. There I made arrangements to come back and hire a bike from them for testing out over a weekend.
The date on the deposit receipt was 12/5/1984
The frame no was 001

So early on Dawes had made prototypes that they photographed for use in pre-release brochures, but in London it was the Saracen that sorted out their production and delivered F.W Evans badged bikes to the shops first. Saracen badged bikes quickly followed, and the first I ever saw was at Bell St. Bikes. Interestingly, to my knowledge, Dawes never again claimed to have made the first UK manufactured mountain bikes,though it was a claim that Saracen frequently made.

 

[mrkawasaki]

So tell us about the test!

 

[amaschio]

I had (and still have) one of the Fisher/Ritchey Montares mentioned above by Graham and I'm pretty sure I rode it at the Wendover Bash mentioned in the first post - my memory is not what it was!! I do recall the series was the "Fat Tire Five". I bought that bike from Evans in The Cut. It was preceded by a Stumpjumper Sport, which I sold on, and followed at the end of '84 by a Roberts custom frame, which I still have and ride. I bought the Stumpy and then the Ritchey in late '83. FW Evans were one of the earliest to have Mountain Bikes, if not the earliest; I remember seeing a pair of Stumpjumpers there (Magura Motorcycle Brake Levers?). However, they had a couple of bikes in at a time, rather than "available". They said something about Richard Ballantyne being involved in importing them, I think.

My brother had an early Evans, in 1984 - it was an excellent frame, in Reynolds 501. My recollection is that the Saracens and later Evans frames were not the same, nothing like as snappy to ride. Certainly these were amongst the first bikes but not the first. Madison were selling one too (Ridgeback) pretty early on. It was not in the same league, being somewhat heavy... It was, though, the first MTB that I ever test rode, from the Beta Bikes shop in North London, and as far as I can recall the first MTB that was generally available.

Takes me back a bit. Tony

 

[Unclejack]

Re:

These same questions seem to keep cropping up, so mostly for my own reference I have taken the liberty of cutting and pasting various previous posts from GJW. I hope this is okay GJW, let me know if not and I hope I do not take anything out of context.

1978 Journalist Richard Grant brings a Gary Fisher "Klunker" into Britain.

1981 UK framebuilder Chas Roberts makes a mountain bike for a US customer whilst Tony Oliver makes one for himself and exhibited at the York cycle show.

1982 Cleland are the first British company in Europe to make and sell off-road bikes in Europe. However they were not based on the US mountain bike designs and production was on a small scale.

1982-83 Ritchey mountain bikes are brought to Britain by the likes of Journalists, Richard Grant and Richard Balantine, and Norman Hiller the owner of Covent Garden Cycles.
Evans are asked by Richard Ballantine to prepare two Ritchey’s for Tim Gartside's and Peter Murphy's Saharan Adventure that took place February 1983. These two bikes were to be the inspiration for the Evans and Saracen bikes. At the Harrogate show in 1983 there were four mountain bikes on display but it is unclear wether any of them were from British companies.

1983. The Ridgeback was introduced via Freewheel catalogue ( I think there is some debate as to whether any actually arrived into the country in 83 but couldn’t find the post about it..UJ)

April/May 1984 Dawes expect that their Ranger MTB will be the first mass-produced "Made in Britain” ATB, but were in fact pipped to the post by F.W. Evans/Saracen as GJW writes…

“… I can personally confirm that the Reynolds 501 framed F.W Evans ATB's were the first mountain bikes to be made in Britain back in early 1984. Back then F.W Evans only had two London shops, one at "The Cut" near Waterloo station, and the other was in Kingston in West London. I recall that I first heard about these bikes in the Waterloo shop but had to go to the Kingston shop to test ride one as they got them first. I was keen to buy British and was told by the staff at 'The Cut' store the date when some F.W. Evans branded mountain bikes would be arriving at their Kingston Cycles shop. I went over on the allotted day to have a look at these newly arrived bikes. There I made arrangements to come back and hire a bike from them for testing out over a weekend. The date on the deposit receipt was 12/5/1984..The frame no was 001”.

The idea to make some of these bikes came from an F.W Evans employee called Gary Smith who was impressed by the Ritchey's that Richard Ballantine had imported into the country and asked Evans to prepare for the Saharan Adventure ( I think there is some suggestion that Condor cycles had something to do with the final design details?) The two versions were identical apart from the logos but whilst the Early Evans ATB were mostly silver the Saracens were black or red. The first bikes came with small flange hubs, Suntour groupsets and were made with lugged Reynolds 501. 531 versions first appeared a few months later. I also recall that Saracen branded touring bikes were being sold well before the ATB models came out

June 1984 Things really start to move with the likes of UK based Muddy Fox importing a large range of Far-eastern made mountain bikes. Other makes available at this time include: Diamond Back, Ammaco, Pro-Lite, Kuwahara, and Peugeot.

 

[Unclejack]

Re:

With regards to the hire bike having a number of 001, neither of my Saracens have frame numbers on them so I suggest that this reference was the bike shops hire bike no 1 and not frame number 1. I don’t know what the turn around on a handbuilt frame would have been but I expect that it would have taken some time for those first few bikes to be built & be ready for the shops. If they were dated I guess they could read sometime between conception circa (Feb 83) and arriving at the shops (May 84)?