The Introduce Yourself Here Thread III

[racedoctor]

Hi All,

I joined here last week and just noticed this tread.
I'm 28 and from the Wigan/ Warrington area. I've been into bikes since I got my first half decent mountain bike (a Saracen Forcetrax) back in about 94/95 ish. At school I always used to have pictures of bike stuff cut out of Mountain Bike Action or MBUK, Kooka cranks, Pace frames.. that sort of thing.

I upgraded the odd thing on my Saracen, mainly just cheap anodised bits. Then when I started College (1997/98 ) I found a little bike shop along my bus route and started going in quite regularly and chatting with the guys there and gaining some knowledge. I also started to shell out a bit more on upgrades, first being a set of Marzocchi Z3's which meant I had to get a proper headset and Ahead stem.

I managed to get myself a part time job in the bike shop, mainly just serving customers and packing mail order stuff. Now with my new staff discount (read trade price ) my upgrading kind of spiralled out of control (well as much as it can when you’re only working Saturdays and a couple of evenings).

I had upgraded pretty much everything on my Saracen and wasn’t long before I got sucked into the whole trend for little strong frames, or 'dual slalom' frames as they were called at the time. I got a DMR Trialstar when they first came into the shop and really loved it. It turned out to be a bit faulty and broke during a landing on a fairly small jump on a car park :cry: I got my money back on it and then bought a Planet-x Jack Flash frame as they had just come in, looking back it was never as nice as the DMR.

During 99/2000 I was offered a Muddyfox Dual Slalom frame from one of the reps which he had and didn’t need, it was red when all the ones I'd seen for sale were blue, plus it had no stickers on. So I sold off the planet-X frame and the fairly crappy Z3's and got some nice 98/99 Z1's. The muddyfox frame is nice and chunky with some cool details and not really what I would have expected from muddyfox at the time.


I broke my foot in 2000 and didn’t cycle for quite a while and then kinda stopped cycling all together, went to Uni, got a proper job, the bike shop had changed to a road bike specific importer selling to trade and now the boss/ my mate has moved over seas.

So anyway, my bike has been sat in the back room un-used for the best part of 10 years and is pretty much like new. A guy at work is starting to get into his mountain biking and brought in an issue of MBUK and I had a flick through, first time in years, everything has changed now and I don't recognise a lot of the names. So I find myself here (this forum) in a very comfy place of memories of better times.

I've already bought a new (old) tyre thanks to a link somebody posted. Hopefully my first of many purchases here. Now just need to get back on it and start riding again


sorry for the long post, got carried away.

 

[MudLover]

Howdy!
A fresh noob to the forums here...Lovely they are I tell ya. I've run across this site many times while perusing da interwebs for info on classic and or vintage bikes...I mostly have road bikes but I've always had a few MTB's laying around. This looks like the best place for older MTB's so I figured I'd better join the ranks.
As for what MTB's I've got in the stable...
)Really early Bianchi Grizzly
)Late 80's/early 90's GT Outpost
)90's GT Avalanche with a lx/xt mix
)And my new baby...A 98 Cannondale with XTR, Raceface, Coda, SRAM, Sachs and Avid components. There are some others in the mix too. A real basket case and truthfully a mutt of a build but I love it none the less. Just a couple parts shy of hitting the trails.

So ya! Glad to be here!

Cheers!

 

[Hottunauk]

Hi

Hi all

I have posted a pic of my bike a Alpinestars al-mega DX in the retro section.

A great great website you have here!!

 

[lusty]

hi

Hi all, I'm Dave and I recently serviced my bike and the resultant search for parts led me here. I will post my bike in the pre '97 section for all to enjoy.
Cheers
Dave

 

[Yorl]

Allright then....My name is Jordi and I'm from Spain. I was looking for some parts to bring my long-forgotten LTS back to life, when I found this site. It's just incredible!! I've always liked retro bikes, and I deeply love LTSs, having owned 4 of them (LTS-1, LTS-DH, STS-DH and now an LTS DS1000).
And next?? Well, I'd love to give a warm welcome to another STS with all the carbon I can.
I'll take some pics of my ride and upload later on!

 

[peetee]

Wotcha. Been here a week now thought I'd give an intro:

Been in to bikes a whole heap of years now. About 30 to be precise. :shock:
Started on the road scene doing hill climbs as they were the only thing I enjoyed. Used to ride up to 17 miles to work so got pretty fit. Work changed a bit over the years and so did the time available to me. Nevertheless In the past 20 years I've only really had a couple of years off from riding to work on a daily basis. Done a few MTB races. Lands End Classic twice. Southampton 3 times.
I was one of the first MTB'ers in the UK I would imagine. Got my first - a Ridgeback 501 from my bro in '85. rode it everywhere. Took it with me when I moved to Cornwall but got fed up with it's limp performance and bone-jarring ride. I wanted to replace it but couldn't find a Brit frame for good money that wasn't a 1st generation clunker like the Ridgeback. I worked in Bike Chain in Redruth and met a bloke who had worked for Condor in London. He agreed to build a custom frame in 531 for £200! Result! Even then it was cheap I think he wanted to use me as a bit of advertising. Annoying thing was after he started he said for another few quid I could have had it in 753!!! nevertheless the end result was a gem and I still ride it now, nearly 20 years later.
Current bike fleet is pretty extensive. haven't got a single recent one.
1986 Peugeot Perthus 753 road
1985 Rick Powell 753 road
1990 Tom Bromwich 531c Audax
1984 Revell 531ST tour
Raleigh 708 cross
1990 Dennis Field 531DS MTB
198* Condor 531Pro
Got a family now so do less riding and more persuading to ride!

 

[richbamboozle]

Hi Everyone,

Been lurking for a while but finally decided to register and post.

Been cycling for about 15 years, using the same 1996 Carrera Instinct for the last 13 of those (don't laugh). Obviously a well known classic retro ...... or not. Buts it's better than the other bike I had ...... an original Raleigh Activator.

Recently picked up a 1990/91 Marin Palisades Trail for £40 as I fancied a bike that actually fit me and after trying to find info on it as i didn't have a clue, stumbled across retrobike. This one needs a full overhaul so that's what i'm going to start next, so expect lots of questions!

 

[jont]

I is ere !!!

What a great place !! My son sent me the link as he knows I like my MTB's oldskool.

JOnT

 

[ridge aint soft]

I also have been lurking on here for a while and thus have decided to break my retro virginity.

Always been into off road biking and back in the late 70's early 80's me and my mates use to put motocross handle bars and knobbies on our racer and hack around our local woods.
Brought my first proper mountain bike towards the end of the 80's, a Bright Yellow DX equipped British eagle BOSS, then followed a Marin bear valley, which got stolen !
Then in 1992 i brought a 16" Limited edition polished aluminium Cannondale.
Still use this bike everyday to commute to work ( photo's soon i hope ) and i have done over 10,000 miles on it.
Also have a 2000 GT XCR2000 which has only done 200 miles and a 2008 GT carbon Zaskar.

 

[JamesH]

Hey y'all, - 42 (I think) and live near York. Born and bred near Sheffield, where I spent a lot of time as a teenager cycling in the Peak District - including a lot of school time, - but there you go.

I have come back to cycling recently and got the bug a bit again, but still with my 20-odd year old Marin Muirwoods, which no longer owes anyone anything....

Although I love my bike 'cos it's an old friend, I have been wondering whether there is anything I can do to feed back a bit less of the ground through my wrists and backside - perhaps telescopic forks (if that can be done without totally ruining the handling) - fatter section tyres than the 1.95s on at the moment - if no tele forks, then perhaps I can find a bar which has some degree of vibration absorption, again without ruining handling.
Anyway, I guess those are issues for other threads, so I had better stop rambling. ......

Oh - and came across retrobike by searching on 't interweb for tips and stuff to do to the bike,

cheers all,

James.