US comments on the UK scene thread please

[jonnyboy666]

i have just spent some time PM-ing some of the prominent US members, asking for a response on this thread.

i for one hope they do choose to respond, whether their opinion is positive or negative or just meh . . . whatever.

please remember that with the other thread it was designed for UK to write and US to read hopefully this thread can be US to write and UK to READ.

 

[FMJ]

Well, I'm from the land of Strange Components and Off Road Toad. Started reading MBUK in 93 (like you and MBA, I had to go to the specialty book store to get it), so I'm well familiar with the UK "scene" (ugh @ scene). Always thought Clockworks were a nice looking, well built frame, and would have liked to have one BITD. Followed JMC's career over here (he actually lived here in Canada as a child), and was gutted when he got smoked on his Harley.

People got what they deserved (came looking for), and people who didn't got caught in the crossfire recently. I feel for the latter.

 

[jonnyboy666]

apologies at the word "scene" i used it in the original thread and apologised for it there aswel such a crappy word but it fitted the bill.

edit--

also to those who i have pm-ed, i will be back online to respond at around 7pm wednesday, time for bed now, it's 1.09am and i get up at 5.20am for a 12 hour shift, gonna be dead tomorrow at work! :shock:

 

[highlandsflyer]

the reason i started the original thread was not to be arrogant or ignorant to other mtb-ing countries as BB might think (not meaning to single you out in a rude way). the reason was because in recent threads like the jan botm i had noticed an us and them feeling and arguments between specifically the US and the UK membership. the thread was a not so obvious attempt to mend a fence in an understanding way that would explain our differences.

every scene in every country is and was different!

I certainly was not suggesting you are ignorant or arrogant.

My point of view is informed by thirty five plus years of spending holidays over the other side of the pond as well as living there for short periods of time. My brother lives there and has also been in the mountain biking 'scene' there during this time, as well as a number of other family and friends.

The view I have been aware of on the Brit MTB scene amongst US riders, is much the same I was aware of amongst riders in just about all other countries other than Britain.

That is to say there was no view, and no discussion of Britain except in the context of some high profile competitors regarding the fact they were from Britain, and the discussion of some esoteric hardware sourced in Britain.

I don't remember in all these years until very recently hearing any mention of Britain in any other way in terms of MTBing origins, as the origins of MTBing was not really a huge subject a few years ago.

So if you like, the part Britain played in the origin would be a small part of a small discussion were it to have been had.

Back even twenty years ago I cannot remember anyone talking that much about how MTBing began, but then I guess we were all too busy doing it.

I am delighted to see Geoff Apps getting deserved credit now for innovation and that British cycling is being added to the footnotes in various ways, but let us keep in perspective. The US scene, now much feted, was indeed a scene, it was not pervasive.

We are most likely to describe our experience of this phenomenon in terms of its impact on our lives, and in that respect the originators of the US scene have much more to tell.

Like many inventions, it is perhaps not the originators of an idea that are remembered, but those who initially took them up and developed them into a popular notion.

To be honest a lot of my US pals were not aware we even had mountains until they came over here or saw them on the internet once there were world class MTB events being held on them!

 

[FairfaxPat]

Being a lot older than most of you guys, I've been into MTB's since their inception in the 70's. It didn't hurt having Charlie Kelly, Joe Breeze, Gary Fisher, and Charlie Cunningham, among others, as my local friends and riding mates. Around 1990 I became a journalist writing about bikes here in America. I was soon writing articles for a German mag and that caught the attention of MBUK, who contacted me about writing a travel article for their readers on the scene here in Marin. I wrote that article in 1991. After that I was receiving the magazine here and that's when I picked up on the nascent scene developing in Britain. The high end bikes were selling here sooner than in the UK simply because MTBs had been around longer and guys were going crazy developing them, especially among them my close friends here in Marin. I like this site because I learn a lot reading on here. I never heard of Orange MTBs before because they weren't marketed here, for instance, as well as Overbury's (thank you LGF). Pat

 

[yo-Nate-y]

If I were to reply in the spirit of the other thread, my entry to mtbing was like this:

I had a DiamondBack Viper that was what I considered my first 'real' bike and it nearly got me through elementary school. In sixth grade ('89?), my friends and I started to notice mountain bikes. I had grown a bit since the DB, and after pleading for a new bike, my dad got me a VERY cheap Peugeot. My best friend had a low-mid-range Raleigh (but still WAY nicer than my Pug). I 'customized' it with some Scott wrap-around bars and neon Odi's and rode the shit out of that thing though.

We tore up the canyons around the town I grew up in, Redlands, Ca. Incidentally, it's next door to Loma Linda, and in the shadow of the San Bernardino Mountains, home of Snow Summit, Bear Mountain, and lots of early 90s mountain bike action. My friend's family had a cabin on the mountain, and we lugged our bikes up to ride around at all the big events, and drooled over the Yeti's and GT's (in particular, maybe due to the BMXeyness of them).

We also started devouring all the bike mags. I surely read more about bikes in sixth, seventh, and eight grade than any other subject. We both soon decided we needed better bikes and set out saving.

My grandmother noticed our diligence and my intense interest in bikes and, perhaps in error, said she'd double anything I could save. Grandfather approved, and I was stoked.

For the next while, from February until August, we did every odd job we could find and saved saved saved. The town I grew up in was safe and had pretty affluent sections. Everyday after school and all day during the summers, we'd go house to house and offer to do odd jobs. We did landscaping, dug out tree trunks, picked oranges, moved boxes, cleared brush, chopped firewood, walked dogs, cleaned, etc etc.

In the process, we rode a lot, and also settled on our dream bikes: my buddy wanted a neon orange Trek 9700, and I wanted a Fat Chance Yo Eddy. I knew about the Yo because my local shop had one in Kandy Wild Cherry with full XT on the floor. I followed up by getting catalogues and scanning the mags. But still, those are pricey bikes! We'd ride and do odd jobs all day, but the end of the ride was always the bike shop, where'd we'd romance our future rides, fondle their shifters, and basically act like shop grommets.

At the end of the summer, it turned out that I had been able to save a cool $1,000. Although my grandfather was aghast at the idea, my grandmother kept her word despite the crazy amount I asked for, and gave me another grand. I considered getting something cheaper and banking the rest, but I couldn't really fathom NOT getting the Yo after all that toil, so I put it all down and started the rest on layaway. Problem was that school had started, and there was really not much chance of me making the remaining $500 needed to get the bike, cover tax, and add a pair of Specialized shoes and a new helmet (my current one was due to be retired). The bike itself was $2300. A LOT for an eight grader.

I managed to add maybe another hundred over the fall. My birthday is in January, and I was hoping to return presents or ask for money instead of gifts--anything in the single-minded pursuit of getting the Yo. It was "mine" but I could only visit-- How frustrating!

Then, a few months later on Christmas day, I found behind the tree my gleaming Yo Eddy. My mom (single mom and full time teacher with four kids!) had saved the extra bit to finalize payment! (my dad, reportedly, kicked in for the helmet) It was the best Christmas ever, and remains so to this day.

I rode the shit of that bike. We'd swelled to a pretty good crew of riders by then, and spent every day in the canyons from the time we were out of school until dark. I raced for about a year, and then lost interest in bikes when cars came onto the scene and I got more into surfing (=driving to the beach). I rekindled my relationship with the Yo in grad school in Tokyo ten years later. I slapped on slicks and a 53 tooth ring and commuted 20 kilos each way to school, and that got me started on biking again.

Now I have a pretty good little quiver of bikes to choose from, but I think it is about time for another build-up for the Yo

So, my mountain biking story was about a certain bike, family, and the friends I rode with. I read the mags and went to races, but the emotional pull for Fat Chance in particular has a lot more behind it than one might expect.....The UK scene literally was off my radar. Maaaybe once in while in a mag profile I'd see something? Aside from Fat, the East Coast meant nothing to me. I might have had a vague idea that Muddy Fox existed and they were British, but that's about the parochial extent of it.

 

[yo-Nate-y]

Here's a sad nod to how much shit I rode out of it!

 

[Rod_Saetan]

Awesome Dachshund.

 

[Tazio]

What kind of hit did you take to get the forks in that condition!

 

[yo-Nate-y]

He's a rad little dog.

The crash was at a housing development in one of the canyons. There was a large 45 degree terracing between flat sections where houses would be built. Like, REALLY large. We'd bomb the terraces. You can get easy air off the edge of the flats if you wanted, and there were great run-outs at the bottom of each terrace section. They were covering probably a hundred fifty feet of height though, so you got going REALLY fast. There was a series of three of these giant ones.

Anyway, a big rain had washed out the transition at the base of the terrace making a large ditch-like channel. Problem is you can't really see it from the top. I saw my friend before me and to my right barely make it, and realized that it was there, and it was deeper where I was coming down. It is all hardpack, you can't really turn, so the options are to bail and start sliding, or try to get enough off the ground to make the transition over the ditch at the bottom.

I tried option two, but didn't get things high enough. The bike stopped. I flew like super man and got major dirt burn on my belly, chin, shoulders, and back but didn't break anything.

We found a small crack around the bottom of the headtube afterward. Fat City said that shouldn't have happened even if the fork was destroyed, and they welded a lip and repainted for free. I went with black for the repaint, and have been kicking myself ever since. I also lament that I went for some Mag 21s and neglected getting new rigids made. But hey, it was 1992, and suspension was the order of the day.