The MTB Introduce Yourself Here Thread V

[baddin]

Hi, I have been lurking on this forum for some time so it is time to make my first post.

Until this year, the only bikes I ever had were kids bikes and definitely no MTBs. During the 90s when they were evolving fast I was busy with my career and had no free time. Move forward 30 years and I feel that I have missed out so I decided to do some research and asked a friend about recommendations for bikes from the 90s. They had a 1994 Marin Pine Mountain and, after searching the internet for many weeks, I found what I thought was the most attractive bike I had ever seen, a 1995 Marin Indian Fire Trail, and bought it. It seemed that it had been left in the rain and needed some work. I started with replacing spokes and truing the wheels then put it to one side, discovered this site and tried to discover which parts were original and which weren't.

By chance, I was looking on ebay and found an unnamed Marin bike, which was either a Bear Valley or Bear Valley SE based on the components and slighty fuzzy picture, and bid on it. I won and was pleasantly surprised that, although it was only a 1992 Bear Valley, it was in very good condition with what seemed like all its original parts and was actually usable as is. The colour scheme is black and black with black Araya CV-7 rims which makes it look mean.

I can certainly see how this can get addictive because I have now found an interesting old aluminium Marin frame that I have been researching as best I can and I will be posting about it soon.

 

[Betsy]

Hi I'm Neal

Back in the 70's when i was a kid, my first proper bike was a baby blue Raleigh Budgie followed by a Tomahawk followed by a Chopper, come the 80's i rode BMX, i had a Kuwahara followed by a Moto-One, i'm from a typically northern working class background so non of these bikes were ever new or even 2nd hand (thanks Thatcher) they were either given by neighbours or bought from the back of the Sheffield Star classified section. I remember going to pick up the Kuwahara, my dad and I met some bloke in a carpark, while my dad bartered him down from £20 to £18 'for cash' I rode it around.. I chucked it in the back of my dads Landrover and took it home. We all used to hang around the Bolehills BMX track, which is still going strong.. I used to have to jam my foot between the stays and the tyre to stop the bike because i couldn't afford to buy brake blocks.
When i was a teenager i bought my first VW Beetle with saturday job money even though i was too young to drive and abandoned BMX for skateboarding.

Not long after i started collecting vinyl, i used to get the train over to Manchester on a Saturday for £6.40 return and trawl the record shops for rave tunes.. this would transpire into vinyl shopping in the day and raving at night, getting the train home on Sunday, when i got the Beetle roadworthy and passed my test.. i would drive to Manchester, more often than not i would forget where i had parked it so i would be walking the streets at 6am searching for it, once i had to go to the police station because i had no clue where it was, 18yr old, hair cut in a bob, 20" hems on my jeans, beads around my neck and dilated pupils, asking the police to help find my car...what a loon!
I met my now wife in Manchester, she was living in a hotel on placement doing a restrateurs diploma, we've been together ever since..
Anywho, this lifestyle wasn't compatible with living at home with my folks so at 18 i moved out into a shared house and instantly became poor again. I bought a battered, resprayed and possibly stolen KHS to ride to work but still managed to find £££ for the weekends. When i finished my 6yr apprenticeship i had more disposable income so moved into a larger shared house with some mountain biking friends, I bought a GT Karakorum, the first new bike ive ever owned, started tricking it out and taking MTB'ing more seriously, the final upgrade was a Zaskar frame. I bought a Pace F6 but the house was becoming a flop house for stoners and acid casualties and by my mid 20's i was getting tired of it, sold the bikes to put down the deposit on a delipidated barn in a small Derbyshire village, bought another Beetle followed by a 66 micro-bus and joined the VW scene.

In the 00's i was partial to a bit of urban exploration, here i am deep in Sheffield's megatron, the city is built on the convergence of 3 rivers so after years of devastating floods they raised the city center.


...and a spot of wild camping, Burbage valley, Beast from the East wekend.



When my kid came along we moved back to Sheff, mainly for the schools, i started to live my unfulfilled cycling dreams through my boy but now he's old enough to be off riding DH at Lady Cannings with his friends so I've reverted back to MTB'ing of yore (buying another F6) hence my interest in the forum. I ride everywhere since moving back to Sheff and just use my old Volvo at the weekends, i think it only covered 1700 miles last year.

 

[ZaskarGT]

Hi,
Was Just searching for 90's GT mtb info and came across this great site
Already found some great information

Having recently acquired my late uncle's GT zaskar I'm hoping to learn more about it.. such as year,parts etc!

Cheers
Spen

 

[Synthiaks]

Hi,
Was Just searching for 90's GT mtb info and came across this great site
Already found some great information

Having recently acquired my late uncle's GT zaskar I'm hoping to learn more about it.. such as year,parts etc!

Cheers
Spen

Thats not a bad inheritance.......the Zaskar is a favorite on this site, sure you'll find plenty of info!

 

[EvanAL]

Hello. Evan here. I'm a long-time rider from the US. MTB all the way! I've been riding and working on bikes since the mid 90's, but that was when I was 13! It was a fun time to be riding. Many of these bikes are as old as I am, but I grew up working on them in the shops. That is where my love for these things comes from.

I've raced and worked in shops, and after an engineering career, I work at a bicycle manufacturer now.

A lot of my bikes are newer (being younger) but one of my primary rides is my Martini Racing. Maybe one of you can tell me more about it? Year? I just shred on the thing. I don't own a bike I don't ride.

I've got a a C'Dale from 97 as well as plenty of other oddities. I enjoy the insight here and look forward to contributing!

 

[naram]

Hi everyone !
I've been a reader of this forum in the past, being myself a mtb practitioner since my early teenage times, but i now decided to register here, maybe planning to participate more actively to this forum i rediscovered not long ago, at least definitely willing to keep reading interesting stuff on this forum.
Also, maybe it's wisdom that comes with age, but i'm slowly leaning toward the "keep it simple" motus, wich sometimes leads to older designs.
Looking forward to keep learning here !

 

[Elfman]

Hey folks, I've been lurking this site with great enjoyment for over a year now, so it's time I introduce myself. I'm Mark, born and raised in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, where much of modern mountain biking was born. As a kid, I rode a bike everywhere (like in the movie The Goonies), and started mountain biking on a rigid Trek 730 or 830 Antelope in Fall Creek, Wilder Ranch, and anywhere else I could. (Santa Cruz singletrack is amazing!!) I started racing as a teen, first with two cyclocross races, than transitioned to mountain bike racing after that. Best I did was placing 4th in an expert class and 2nd place in an uphill time trial (I was a good climber). Early in my racing career, it was clear that a 28-pound Trek was not going to cut it...so I bought a customized Fisher Procaliber (1992?), complete with Campy Record OR groupset, Onza Ti CWA bar ends, and Mag21s. I upgraded it several times (converting to XTR, Chris King, White hubs laced to Mavic 231s). I rode off and on through college and grad school, and "inherited" a Bontrager Race Lite from my brother (more about that one soon, in an upcoming build thread) which I built as a single speed, sold the Procaliber, and got really strong riding single speed on the trails of North Carolina. Pretty soon, reality and adulthood caught up to me, and despite moving to Colorado, mountain biking fell to the wayside as family started and the daily grind eliminated all hope. Keeping the Bonty, I bought a LiTech Magnesium off ebay in the early 2000s and built it up with a lot of 3dv and 90s parts (save the early Fox F-Series fork). But didn't ride it enough either.

I'm now in my mid-40s, and as all mid-life crises appropriately emplace themselves, I've got some income (not that much, mind you, I don't work at Google, Apple, or Facebook...) that can support the dreams that never died....and I now returned to the coop, as they say, living once again in the redwood studded mountains of Santa Cruz County, California. Kids are getting older, my itch to ride and get in shape is growing, and I have 5 bikes to build and share with you all: Bontrager Race Lite (1995 or 96, pre trek, but with an interesting twist), 1991 Kestrel CSX, 1993 Klein Rascal, late 90s or early 2000s Top Image e-stay, and the Litech Magnesium. I'm almost done collecting parts. Build threads to come soon!

Thanks for creating such a great site and community!

 

[Pierre Noiret]

Hi All,
Have allready been long ago here under the alias Pino.
Have been working in bikeshops and 2 big bikebrands for my complete working ‘career’. Riding on and offroad as main hobby.
Now I retired from work and will try to get my gathered stuff in order. Combining stuff and clearing the shed, if I have time left after riding, which is still my most important hobby.
Happy 2022 to all!

 

[MTBMX]

Hi everyone. Newbie to this forum, but have been fiddling with bikes almost my entire life. I have a '94 Scott that I have owned since new.

 

[spoonybiker]

Hi. Messing around on and with bikes for years. I fix up and sell old bikes, mostly commuter hybrid stuff but every now and then come across something nice. 90's mtbs have become my fave. I don't restore though, but like to modernise and hack. Hence, probably got a few parts laying around.