Do you prefer to collect a Specific Brand or Brands & Why ?

[ultrazenith]

I have a special like of Raleigh Dynatechs, probably due to imprinting of bike tastes when I first started going to a bike showroom. In the end my first proper MTB was an M Trax Ti, a poor man's Dynatech, and it rode so well that when I got back into MTBing in my 30s, I started collecting bonded Ti Dynatechs from the early 90s. Aside from being light an having a great feel to them, I also absolutely loved the paint jobs of all early 90 Dynatechs.

 

[petitpal]

BITD I started with what I could afford (a mid-range '94 steel Saracen) and then saw a picture of a GT Zaskar in MBUK magazine. Cut it out, blu-tacked it to my 14" PC monitor in late '94 / early '95 somewhere, and finally managed to scrape enough together for a bare frame a year or so later. Dragged it back from the bike shop in it's box, built it up using half the components from the Saracen and fell in love on my first ride. Climbs like anything, really digs in and goes for it; love the rigid feeling of the alu frame (and the hollow sound it makes when you ride); all round wonderful bike - could never really fault it. Never occurred to me to buy anything else since (outside of maybe a Pace for Mint Sauce reasons). So most of my purchasing has been around re-building my Zaskar with some nicer components. I'm a bit sad like that... and I'm mainly emotionally attached to purple anno.

 

[MarinMartin]

Re:

Marins. They're the reason I'm in this mess, I mean addiction. First bike I ever worked on was my old Bolinas ridge and first bike I ever took actual mountain biking was my Muirwoods. (a bit out of it's depth but it lives to tell the tale). Had more than I can remember. oh and one of my dream bikes was the Marin Alpine trail.

Also Giant because partly my old stonebreaker had something about it that made me like it so much and partly When I started riding again a few years back my dream bike was a Giant trance (which I now own).

Have had probably hundreds of bikes over the years but Marins and Giants always stay the longest.

 

[M-Power]

Re:

Great three last posts...

Ride quality really interest me. We all have such different preferences and having ridden 100s of bikes over the years, its a rare synergy of factors that comes together to make a bike feel so right. Big fan of early Marins. The first bike I ever road that made me feel that ride wow factor was the 88 Pine Mountain with Prestige tubing. I still love that steel feel now. I have never tried a 753 Zinn to compare though.

 

[Silvergoat]

Re:

Orange, Onza, Dia Compe and Zoom. Originally, bitd, I started mountain biking properly on a zolatoned Marin – which was a revelation after a Raleigh Arena :facepalm: The Marin got stolen in Cardiff and then shortly after that, I moved back to my home town of Huddersfield.

Bikeless, I'd go and console myself in Wheelspin (the LBS) which was an Aladdin's cave of Orange bikes and much trickery. I went home with the brochures, eagerly read the magazine reviews and dreamed of buying an Orange but only when I could afford to. So I scrimped and scraped and saved up.

Then one day, I noticed a new bike shop in town – Rainbow Cycles. Brian the owner worked with Orange developing bikes so he brought with a stash of bikes, frames and bits. We did a deal for £175 and I went home with an early period Clockwork frame in an unusual colour and some not-on-sale-yet shiny nickel F7 forks.

Over a couple of winter months, I went back to Wheelspin and bought my own choice of parts to build the bike: Zoom stem and seatpost, Dia Compe SS7s and 986 brakes, Vetta saddle, and Onza grips, tyres, clip-less pedals. I could never ever afford the higher end trickery brands at the time so these bits, whilst being affordable, were still cool and rad enough and I just loved the design and detailing of them. I'm very happy to report that 25 years on, I still have most of the above, running in perfect working order.

Orange in particular has very strong emotional attachment for me because it reminds me of home and where I came from – their factory was just a few miles the other side of a hill from where I lived and the Clockwork that I built up myself is staying with me for life.

 

[ultrazenith]

This is one of the few MTB photos I have of my formative years in cycling. All three of us rode Raleigh Special Products bikes, all with the same bonded Ti / cromo Duo Tech frames. I'm the lanky one on the black M Trax 400 with Rockshox Q21Rs. My brother had the Dynatech Diablo STX - still one of the best looking bikes I have see to date. Our mate (on the floor) rode an M Trax Ti 1000.

As well as the bikes themselves, for me it's also certain places, and smells that seem to evoke the important, good times of 90s MTBing. The area in the photograph was a fantastic place to ride, right on the edge of Dartmoor with a complex network of trails, but still close enough to Plympton to limp home after an mechanical or a crash. It's one of the places I yearn to ride again, but the entire hill got razed to make way for an open cast mine a couple of years ago. Very sad.

I've had a couple of NOS or nearly unused Raleighs recently, and I noticed the grease (I assume it was that) they used at the time has a very distinctive smell, so much so that I could close my eyes and I could have been back in 1994 opening the box of my mail order M Trax 400 and putting it together for the first time.

In my quest to get back to those times, I have perhaps bought a few too many bikes which are very close to what I was looking for, but an exact match still eludes me. Saying that, what I have collected so far are very very nice! Such as my NOS MT4 frameset etc.

 

[TheEasyLife]

A combination of emotional and technical for me.

I like KHS Montana Pro’s from the early 90’s as they were a decent spec bike bitd with a really good review in mbuk in93 plus their uk importer was on other hill in Sheffield to the one I lived on. I’ve still got the 92 model I bought from them in 93 and it was light years better (weight and handling) than the Raleigh Summit it replaced. I recently built up a 90 Montana Pro from a frame and fork I’d acquired. I’d always fancied a 93 Montana Team so added one of those to the collection then found a pair of 95 TiLite frames which are being built up currently.

I worked at Halfords in the late 80’s early 90’s hence a top of their range Raleigh Summit prior to the KHS as staff discount was sensible back then. My other Dynatechs and M-Trax’s were sensibly priced mid range spec things which I’d have probably have worked my way onto if I’d not bought the KHS and I’ve always adored Titanium rather than carbon (exception being RC35’s ) so I see them as complimentary rather than competing with the KHS in my collection.

James

 

[t wild]

Would have said no before but I'm getting a bit of a taste for specialized at the moment. Think it's because they keep popping up locally for not much money and my current go to ride is a 98 rockhopper comp fs.

 

[M-Power]

Re:

Seriously emotional stuff ^^. Did we have any idea the effect riding these bikes would have on us ? I kind of feel sorry for the yoof/millenials of today, many of whom just wont have these kinds of experiences to look back on spending all their spare time video gaming online etc

Around 15/20 of us used to take a train to Petersfield once a month and ride the SDW to Eastborne. We all had decent paying jobs at the time and nice bikes. I can remember riding with these guys, past golden fields of corn and oileseed rape, the sound of silence punctuated by bees, the sun on our backs, sometimes flints flying up from the wheels as we descended at speed but in those moments i have never been happier. You wished the trails and days would never end. Then the tea a flap jack stops were legendary. Then falling asleep in the mail carriage on the train back home. Happy days

 

[t wild]

He he. I haven't had an emotional attachment with a bike since the bmx I had been honing changing and modifying parts for years on got stolen. But that was 16 years ago and I got into cars and normal life took over. Must admit though I'm collecting the bits I need to recreate it. Truth is though I'm just enjoying building and riding stuff I could only dream of owning 20 years ago.