What bike did you want when you first got into atb?

[Supratada]

I really couldn't say, as I can't remember. I do remember being a full-on Roadie and flicking through a Dawes catalogue I saw this "thing", like a road frame but with a big saddle and tyres and weird bullmoose bars with thumbshifters. I thought it was an awful idea and would never catch on.
Something changed between then and '87-88 as I also remember coming home on the train from On Your Bike at London Bridge with a brand new Saracen Tufftrax (much like the one currently on sale for £65). I don't remember being in the shop or the decision process in buying it ... lets just say I've " indulged"a bit from 88' onwards.

I can reverse engineer the idea that I wanted something British/not American, and Dawes was too old-fashioned and "tour-ey" for me, so Saracen fitted the bill. Hence me getting an Orange a few years later.

The MC San-An was the one I really lusted after but that only came about through seeing it in MBUK. That or the Pace RC100.

 

[fatface]

Re: Re:

The first time I rode a real MTB, it was in 1988 (before I rode off road but with a BMX…). That bike was a black-red MBK adventure.
But the bike I discovered and I rode on the parking of a shop 2 month later and then, I wanted to own, was that 1988 Cannondale SM600

I found and I bought that bike I rode 19 years later

I saw one of these in York Cycle Works about the same period. I never got one....

 

[2manyoranges]

Re:

I moved to Sussex for University in the 80s. We had been rattling around Wiltshire off road on anything which rolled. Then a colleague borrowed a Raleigh Mustang, while a friend had a Dawes Ranger rolling bedstead. I couldn’t wait. I had been MX-ing for a while but wanted the peace and freedom of a bike. At that stage, the Dawes Ranger actually looked like a high quality, specialist piece of kit. So I got one. It seemed wonderful. We cycled for miles and miles on the South Downs. I then graduated to a Cannondale SM600, in preference to a Cinelli Columbus with Deore. Mistake. Cannondale was stolen. Next was a Marin, just imported into Worthing. It was clear from this long top tubed, tange framed, well-specced bike that the Dawes was shite. And the rest is history....

 

[Splatter Paint]

Re:

Anything other than the Bacini my parent’s bought me! My Dad sorted me out with a Muddy Fox Courier when he could see I was serious about mtb. I borrowed a Lava Dome for racing, which was soo much better than the MF, hence the last 25+ years have been all about Konas.

 

[zetecmk2]

my girlfriend at the time bought a stolen raleigh yukon. that started it all. i bought a Taiwanese oversize alloy frame from recycle in penge for £30. transferred all the gs200 over, and polished it. bought my first mbuk and realised there was better stuff out there. i seem to still be getting all the stuff i couldn't afford in the '90's. san andreas, sts, beast of the east etc. but my all time love was the zaskar....i must have had about 8, in fact, i think now is the only time i don't own one. maybe i'll start looking.......here we go again!

 

[Supratada]

Ah, I remember those. You could buy a fairly cheap blank polished alu frame with fat tubes. My mate did exactly as you and transferred over bits.

 

[zetecmk2]

my girlfriend at the time bought a stolen raleigh yukon. that started it all. i bought a Taiwanese oversize alloy frame from recycle in penge for £30. transferred all the gs200 over, and polished it. bought my first mbuk and realised there was better stuff out there. i seem to still be getting all the stuff i couldn't afford in the '90's. san andreas, sts, beast of the east etc. but my all time love was the zaskar....i must have had about 8, in fact, i think now is the only time i don't own one. maybe i'll start looking.......here we go again!

just got another zaskar

 

[Gerard]

Re:

1988...it was a Reflex ALX99.

 

[tintin40]

A Trimble from the moment i saw a picture of one in a magazine.

 

[Tricky1977]

Was always a Pine Mountain for me, I had friends with Bear Valley, Eldridge and I got a Palisades... but the Pine Mountain was “TOTR”.
And now I have one, but will one be enough