Difficult to say as I really enjoy riding now and am at the stage when I can afford a nice bike to ride and have some good mates to ride with.
I do look back fondly though to the mid-nineties when none of us could afford the bling bits, it was fred salmon handlebars or nowt. But we still rode like lunatics, rode all the big routes in the lakes on rigid bikes, got lost all the time, had no proper cycling kit apart from ron hill 'bikesters'. Now new riders seem to think they need to spend a grand or more on a full suspension bke to ride a fairly tame man made trail.