cool by 18% of votes. JESUS!

Right, so we're judging the groupset out of context. Is that it?

Shimano 200Gs adorned my first mountain bike (a 1990 Marin Muirwoods that was so yellow you could see it from outer space). The plastic shifters were the cause of much hilarity for the decidedly better (Deore) equipped Tangent, sometime of this parish.

But... that bike and its steel n' plastic groupset launched me into a whole new world of fun - and for that reason, I vote cool.

I absolutely understand the affection for low-end kit, we all started somewhere after all, and it was no different for me. But we moved on, mostly upwards.

I could get all sentimental about the floppy Nike trainers I used for the first couple of years before I could afford a proper pair of cycling shoes. Or the awful piss-pot lid I wore before I bought a Bell helmet (and then plastered with stickers). Or the crochet mitts that gave me calluses Eddie Van Halen would have been proud of.

But they aren't cool, just things that I used when I started mountain biking. I look back fondly on the kit I used to use, with varying degrees of suitability - but none of it was or is cool. It was (often old and tired) horses for courses.

All in my most humble of respectful opinions, of course.

But please, I refer you all to this:

Coming, as I did, from tricycle>stabilisers>s/s freewheel>3-speed Sturmey Archer>Sachs Huret over the course of nearly 30 years then, yes, these did look pretty damn cool at the time...

...if you look at most of the bikes on here you'd think nobody ever rode anything that didn't have XT/XTR plastered all over it

I thought I'd reached personal nirvana on my DX equipped cro-mega (and before anyone questions the validity of my sketchy rose-tinted recall I bought the frame first and the DX was the best looking kit I could see in the 'removed from customers bike' cabinet; both from my friendly LBS in Sprowston...), but later even my Clockwork had Exage 500 on it; and that bike was a real 'must have' at the time.

Nowadays I think they're kind of 'anti-cool', like one of Clint Eastwoods dodgy heros...

The hardware itself is totally uncool. Personally- I started with 300LX!

However, the knowledge that comes from knowing you used to be able to drag yourself up a gnarly Peaks climb that you know you would be struggling to get up today on a bike costing 5 times as much - makes the concept of "cool" pretty irrelevant TBH.

Uncool

Only acted as an impetus to get the better gear...

As previously stated cool isn't a measure if something is good or not...

I so wanted to vote cool.
Ultimately, functionality for a price but uncool.

After much deliberation, I'm going to have go uncool. If we topped out at Alivio I might go cool (the Alivio cranks I have in my box are just a pretty as the XT of the day) but given the general 'black-not-quite-plastic' nature of this sort of level, and the nearly-but-doesn't-entirely-work nature of it all, I'm going to have to give in to my 'uncool' urges.

not so much out of context but in black and white rather than seeing the whole plastic coated greyness of it!

my point is simply that in the right situation, on the right bike and with the right reasoning, they can be considered cool by those who appreciate the picture as a whole rather than looking past its function to what it 'means' rather than what it 'does'

Still run 200gs on a Dale & since 92 when I bought it never changed anything & it's done thousands of miles! But it looks crap and is made of pig iron! So my votes negatory good buddy!

TC

IMHO not cool but neither is XTR, DX and XT are the only cool ones around.

Any examples you can post up?

I started with 300LX on my Trek 830 - and somehow I caught the mountain biking bug. It got me riding and my love of MTB was kindled - mostly at Swinley Forest pre 1990.

We all started our MTB career somewhere - and generally - it was with kit that most of wouldn't put on our retrobikes now.

It might not be "cool", but - i put it to you - that we all owe it a debt of gratitude. And we now appreciate the better kit we can now afford, because we can still remember (just) what it was like in the beginning.

Pedantic as it may be, this is about the groupsets below, which weren't a patch on 300-500LX.