A brief history of retrobiking?

Ameybrook puts it well but there is another huge factor.

-The boom time for MTB's was the early '90's.
-Most people here were in their teens, in a relativly financially comfortable era.
-Parents were willing to indule our sporting desires.
-The MTB kids grow up.
-Now we have a lot of disposable income (compared to previous generations) and ebay.

We are able to indulge the peterpan fantasy as fully as possible, why on earth do I love '80's cars, how many of us have a SEGA that we still use, are Soundgarden still playing on your HiFi???

Sad but true boys and girls. We just don't want to grow up. And thanks to ebay and easy credit we don't have to!

As long as its Badmotofinger.

Other good points too Pete.

Think of it as the evolution of the industry.

Bontrager, Ritchey, and WTB moved focus to components.

Steel frames are alive and well, just not under the names we remember from way back when.

Sycip, Hunter, Curtlo, Soulcraft, Mountain Goat, Retrotec/Inglis, Patrick, Vanilla, Vicious, and the list goes on and on for smaller boutique companies making stellar steel frame mountain bikes that are....essentially the modern day version of what we remember from way back when.

You like Fat Chance? Get an Indy Fab.
You like Mountain Goat? Get a Sycip made (modern) Mountain Goat.
You like Bontrager, get a Paul Sadoff Rock Lobster.
Salsa still makes a great Ala Carte....Soulcraft makes their frames in Ross Shafers garage.
Steve Potts (WTB) makes Ti frames.


The single speed movement did wonders for bringing back vintage bikes and breathing new life into modern steel hard tails.
29'ers too.

It's all there, just...different.

The idea that MTB'ing didn't exist before "Fisher & Co. put gears on klunkers to get up hill when shuttle driver too drunk/stoned to drive." is rubbish. People have been riding modified bikes off road for decades in various countries around the world. The view that MTB'ing started in the USA is just a sales pitch. MTB'ing was international long before Ned won the Worlds.

The truth is that MTB'ing was first commercialised in the States by Fisher et al, they were the first to take a hobby, something people had been doing the world over for years and try to make some decent money out of it. Its been mentioned elsewhere on this forum, but the 'Rough Stuff Fellowship' were around in the 1950's in this country doing exactly what Fisher and the rest were doing in Marin in the '70's, The RSF just didn't have the foresight to turn their hobby into a business. Its great marketing to say that the MTB was born in Marin country but it wasn't, it was just refined and packaged for the first time. Its like saying McDonalds invented the hamburger, they didn't, they just took it to the proles.

Can I put this forward as "Thread of the Month"?

Don't you opress me with your bourgoise generalisations.

Before Mc Donalds the Burger was the food of kings. Marie Antoinette may have even said 'let them eat whoppers'...

I really hope this becomes another "Who invented the mountain bike thread"

Help, help, I'm being oppressed.

I think that a 'whopper' may have been the last thing that Marie Antoinette called for if some history books are to be believed

Sorry, off topic, different history.

If its any help, we've moved on to the history of the French Monarchy now.

Your right should clarify that one. To me the basic concept of rim brakes is moronic. You actually wear away the very wheels that you are riding upon.
It is like slowly cutting off your leg so you can go for a walk.

Oh am searching for some Machine Tech V's at the moment if anyone has some....

Lid