You may want to go to the loo, or get a drink before you read my personal UK MTB history, it may take some time to read.....
...It all started out when my best mate at school had a Raleigh Maverick ATB in the mid '80's, I had a go round the block on it and I was hooked, my Dawes Lightening 5 speed racer was history. I wanted, no
needed an ATB...
A few months must have passed and a big box arrived from the catalogue company, I always had my lunch at home as school wasn't very far away, so I set about building up the contents of the big brown box. A Raleigh Mustang (black and white version) began to take shape, lunch went out of the window as I needed to get this bike built up and ridden back to school to show all my mates. Lunchtime passed and the bike wasn't ready to ride, I was late for school and without my new shiny bike, boy was I gutted!
So the bike finally got built up that evening and I spent hours ragging it around the local seafront and in the sand dunes, I was such a happy bunny
Time passed on a bit and some scrote decided that they wanted the bike more than I did
This was the first bike I'd had stolen from me, I remember the feeling of coming back to where the bike should have been to this day, utter devastation as I saw the broken lock on the floor, I knew I'd not see that bike again.
Anyway the house insurance paid up and another Mustang was mine, this time it was the marbled purple version, again hours of fun were had on that ATB until again some scrote decided they wanted it more than I did
So once again the house insurance came to the rescue and I upgraded to a Claud Butler Magma (the one with the forest green paint flecks over a gloss black paintjob). Claud Butlers were all the rage in my town, the factory was only a 40 minute drive away and plenty of Claud's were to be seen rolling up & down the seafront.
Then whilst shopping for my new skateboard I came across a shop that sold Marin mountain bikes, oh my God, they were beautiful, I had to have one, but the prices of them meant that I had no chance of owning one, so I carried on drooling over them for several years until the shop closed down.
The LBS that had supplied my purple Mustang also stocked Muddy Fox, the white and purple Courier was now the subject of my bike lust, but again the price was too high for my hard working parents to afford & my paper round simply didn't pay enough for me to have one even if I'd have saved up for years!
After the Claud Butler went the same way as the Raleigh's I sold my electric guitar and bought a Ridgeback 602, which lasted a whole 2 weeks before someone unscrewed my parents shed door and stole it along with a crate of beer
Thoroughly gutted as I had no guitar or bike I completely lost my passion for cycling and bought a car.
10 years passed before I got the bug again, a '98 Scott Peak was purchased from the LBS I now work in! The Peak was a superb bike and I loved throwing it around the local woods and the trails up at Dalby forest, the bike is now owned by my best friends father and is still in regular use.
Then it all went a bit modern in 2003 with an Orange Gringo... but that's a story for another time...
During all my time with the older bikes I had no idea about the history of the sport, or about any other brands that weren't available in our local bike shops.
There were a lot of UK built bikes in the shops Falcon, Claud Butler & Saracen to name a few, exotica to me was either Marin or Muddy Fox, U brakes along with Exage groupsets. This probably explains why I prefer the retro bikes that I now own & why I don't lust after the high end bikes from back in the day, although I do appreciate them I don't think I'd like to own one
It's only since joining this forum that I have discovered the history of the sport I love so much and the innovations that helped create the bikes that bring such a smile to my face and make me forget about anything other than the few feet ahead of my front wheel.