The start of mountain biking in Britain 1984 picture thread

[NigelMoore]

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Was fascinated to come across those photos, having only just discovered some of mine from the same event. I have been trying to find out if Norman was still around, as I would love to get in touch, and a google search uncovered this site. I worked for him at Covent Garden Cycles in the early eighties, and kept in touch for some time, but the last I saw him was at my 40th birthday party aboard a barge on the Thames, back in 1991.

Before this downhill event, if I recall correctly, there was a more level mountain bike race starting off with the BMX course at Lea Valley Park I think it was. I rode Norman’s Ritchie in the heats for that, but had been smoking too much to enable me to bring any glory to Covent Garden Cycles! I still have the much modified Bickerton he helped me source parts for, and have put many more miles on it since then.

 

[NigelMoore]

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I see now that the earlier event I mentioned was identified in the first post on this topic - should have started from the beginning! I have no photos from that unfortunately, but if I can figure the system here, I have photos from the Wendover event. I realise that with a year gone since the last post this will be too late for what you wanted them for, but anyway . . .

Any guidance available on posting photos here? I thought I followed instructions, but appear to have flunked.

 

[hmmhmm]

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Lea Valley? Here's a picture from that very first event (I think).

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

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Was fascinated to come across those photos, having only just discovered some of mine from the same event. I have been trying to find out if Norman was still around, as I would love to get in touch, and a google search uncovered this site. I worked for him at Covent Garden Cycles in the early eighties, and kept in touch for some time, but the last I saw him was at my 40th birthday party aboard a barge on the Thames, back in 1991.

Hi Nigel, I used to often visit Covent Garden cycles during my lunch break 1985-88. Apart from Norman the only other name I can remember from the shop was Mark French.

In order to add photos:
First the file must be less than 512kbs in size (Microsoft Office Picture Manager or a similar program can be used to reduce the file size) Then in the Upload Attachment section, click on 'Browse' , find your file on your computer/phone and then press 'Add the file'
Then click on the text box where you want your picture to go and press 'Place inline'

This process can be repeated adding other photos etc before submitting your reply for others to see.

I look forward to seeing your photos.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

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Lea Valley? Here's a picture from that very first event (I think).

If this is from this event it is the first picture I have seen posted apart from those published in Bicycle Action magazine.

Though I did not go along to the lea Valley event, from talking to some who did I understand the following:
*It was a grey wet day and did not produce the photo opportunities the organisers/sponsors were hoping for.
*The event was run along side a pre arranged HPV track event. (some also say a BMX event?)
* The event consisted of a series of cross-country heats with none of the downhill racing, hill-climbs and trials riding that characterised later events.
* Some of the banked sections were to steep or slippy that they could not be ridden, and riders had to dismount and push or carry their bikes up these slopes.

 

[NigelMoore]

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Hi Nigel, I used to often visit Covent Garden cycles during my lunch break 1985-88. Apart from Norman the only other name I can remember from the shop was Mark French.

Thanks for the tips, will try to make it work – I had figured that my file sizes were too large, but when I went through a tortuous process of reducing them to only a few hundred kilobytes, the site still told me they exceeded limits.

I had left to go travelling again by 1985, so you would not have met me, unless it coincided with a later visit during my return stints.

Yep - tried again with a 156 kb image, and the message coming up says:

"The image must be at least 0 pixels wide, 0 pixels high and at most 1280 pixels wide and 0 pixels high. The submitted image is 1766 pixels wide and 1177 pixels high."

I cannot find a way to get the old Office editor onto Windows 10, and have to reduce through a convoluted process in PaperPort - but 156 kb is as small as I can go - and how does one have a viable picture "at most" 0 pixels high anyway?

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

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Below 1280x1280 pixels and 512 Kb should work?

 

[NigelMoore]

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Well this has at least got me to work out how to install the Picture Manager on Windows 10!



Wow - it worked! Thanks.

 

[NigelMoore]

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Well as that seems to work, here are the rest of my photos from Wendover - apart from a couple of artistic attempts at impressionist blurs [I like them, but . . .]

 

[NigelMoore]

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Hoping this is not too off-topic, but thought those of you familiar with Covent Garden Cycles might like this jog to the memory -