How did you get into riding?

[Bearbonesnorm]

For me it was a weekend at Centre Parcs of all things.

I hadn't ridden anything with two wheels that didn't have an engine since the day I turned 16 but that weekend we rode round on mountain bike shaped objects. Someone decided that seeing as we had 'mountain bikes' then we should take them off road ... we set off into the woods late Sat afternoon having been told - "don't be long and don't come back covered in crap, we're going out".

Three hours later we returned having spent most of that time rolling around on the floor ... covered in blood and crap.

That evening someone nipped in the shop and came out with a mountain bike magazine. The remainder of the evening involved sitting on the sofa, flipping pages and saying, f**k me, how much?.

Two weeks later I was £850 worse off and had a bike ... and there begins a very long story.

[Dan_K]

I had a mountain bike in my teens to get me to school and back and used to have fun riding it in the woods but then discovered women and passed my driving test and riding my bike didn't seem important anymore!

I ballooned in weight in my 20's (33 now) and then in 2007/8 was visiting my in-laws in the Peak District. Father in law offered to take me for a cycle along the canal, so I borrowed the mother-in-laws hardtail and joined him for a ride. The old git raced off with me trailing behind. He’d stop and wait for me and every time I caught up, he’d go again so I never got any rest.
Sparked my interest in bikes though and shortly after I bought a Giant XTC 3.5 for about £600. I’ve had a couple of additional bikes since but still have the Giant, languishing in the garage.
I went out for a couple of rides locally before heading out to the Surrey Hills and getting lost in Coldharbour – “Summer Lightning” was probably the first “proper” groomed trail I rode. Shortly after, I went to Bedgebury trail centre, which I really enjoyed before getting out on some proper rides in the Peak District with my father-in-law.
I realised my fitness wasn’t great though and bought a road bike, which took over my cycling really and mountain biking took a back seat – still does if I’m honest. I’ve done loads on the road side of things but very little mountain biking in comparison.

I’ve decided that 2015 is going to be more about mountain biking though so we’ll see how I get on….

[Ray Young]

In my my mid twenties bought a cheap road bike to commute on which I did for a year. Mountain bikes came out, bought a cheap one and toured Europe on it even though I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Came home after 18 months and bought a brand new motorbike which got nicked after only six weeks (motorcycle theft in Newcastle Upon Tyne was/is horrendous). Thought bugger it, if I can't have a motorbike I'll buy a decent mountain bike and was off road touring within six months. Never loooked back since but did have ten years off due to ill health.

[Dan_K]

Ray, have you had a motorbike since? I had a few in my 20's but riding for work took the fun out of it and then when I changed jobs, I sold the motorbikes because I was enjoying cycling so much and didn't have time for more hobbies.

Btw, Stu, I couldn't imagine you at Center Parcs!

[Ray Young]

Ray, have you had a motorbike since?

Yes, had half a dozen or so since then but nothing for ten years. Maybe another one some day, really fancy building a custom but that's a real big commitment.

[Scattamah]

Being a non-motorised kinda bloke, I've always had a bike. From an early age, there were the obligatory fixies, dragsters, bmx and kmart-stylee heavy road things.

In the early 90's I picked up a road bike from a mate...nice Reynolds 531 with Velocity Aeroheads and 105 all over it. That was when the long distances became a reality and I started to bag centuries. Alas, an off-road bike, she was not. A stiff, unyielding speed machine, she was! Trashed my knees more than once climbing the Great Dividing Range in Oz on this one.

Circa 1996, I got my first mountain bike, a 4th-hand Cadex CFM3 - the one I still ride today. The centuries continued, albeit on different terrain. I could take short cuts now down coastal fire trails, diving through puddles and dodging wildlife...bonus! The climbing rings were also kinder on the knees. The Reynolds was let go at this point. 3 continents later she's still going strong although showing her age.

Earlier this year I took a dive into 29er territory with a Trek Superfly AL Elite...a wonderful bike that took a beating down the Rockies. But that's a whole 'nother story.

Greetz

S.

[gairym]

Nice, I like reading about peoples biking histories.

Here's mine:

I got into BMXing in the 80's which involved mostly building brick/plank jumps, learning to wheelie (I was never any good) and pulling skids (I was VERY good).

Then I wanted a road bike but we were too poor and so, like in the old yellow pages advert, my dad set about building me up a 2nd hand one.

Luckily for me my LBC was the Universal Cycle Centre run by Dave Marsh (some of you will know of Dave Marsh track/road frames and for those who don't he made/makes great steel frames) which was only a few hundred meters away and Dave is a bloody friendly and helpful fella.

Come Christmas morning I was the very proud owner of a heavy and very poorly re-sprayed (my work) beauty and I spent many long summer days whizzing around Yorkshire on that bike!

I then discovered skateboarding and bikes were largely forgotten until late '95 when (whilst suffering the consequences of an ill-advised period of techno fuelled non-legal pharmaceutical experimentation) I found myself 'in a bad way'.

I'd lost my job (due to being a mess most of the time) and so spent the sunmer living at my mum and dad's and using a friends GT to get out into the countryside to sorry my head out.

It did the trick and a few months later I was tootling around on a rigid Giant (which I rode into the ground trying to emulate Peaty, Warner etc... at Steetly Quarry near Doncaster).

Having graduated to a nice Marin full-susser (which took me 10 years to pay off the debt for) I came to the realisation that I am a bit of a pussy and so I turned to general XC riding and continued until early 2011 when I discovered that I wasn't the only one who wanted to combine riding with camping and I stumbled upon this fine forum.

The rest is history.....

[Richpips]

I started out in my early teens with a 5 speed road bike from Makro which was probably the cheapest bike my Dad could find. It weighed a ton. I rode that 3 1/2 miles to school and back every day, as I could pocket the bus fare as pocket money.

At the weekends I'd pack a saddlebag and would ride out from Leeds towards Ilkley, Patelely Bridge, and once as far as Grassington which was a 70 mile trip, that involved a snow storm.

Some scrote pinched the bike from outside the leisure centre. I was gutted to have no wheels. Though at a later date I did get it back by forcibly taking back from said scrote.

Once working, I bought a second hand Woodrup road bike, which was for a while my absolute pride and joy, apart from it having tubs for tyres.

In 1989 I saw a picture of Ned Overend in a cycling magazine, riding one of those new fangled mountain bikes. They looked much more interesting than road bikes I thought.

I checked out the Leeds bike shops, including the one that Brant used to work at, before finding another shop that would take my Woodrup in part exchange for a Specialized Rockhopper which was as the bikeshop owner said, a size too large for me.



Over the years I've always stayed with cycling, on and off road.

Racing, touring, commuting and just riding along. It's all good.

[Ray Young]

^^^^ Are those SPD pedals i see on that rock hopper, you will have the retro bike police onto you if your not careful.

[FLV]

I seem to recall it was a faster way to explore than walking everywhere. I cut my teeth in the pennines bombing about on a diamond back topanga that my mum got me from the catalogue. I worked in a butchers from the age of 13 to pay it off weekly.

When I got my apprenticeship at 16 I saved up and bought a trek of some sort, a bonded frame one. called the 620 or something. From then on it started

[Bearbonesnorm]

Btw, Stu, I couldn't imagine you at Center Parcs!

It was 20 years ago Dan ... if you can't imagine me now, you certainly wouldn't have then.

[slowupslowdown-under]

Rode all sorts of bikes from 6 years old - but first got into 'all terrain bikes' at about 12 when I got the first generation Raleigh Mustang for my birthday (couldn't afford the shiny Specialized bikes in the magazines and catalogues I horded and kept under my mattress the way most boys kept jazz mags).

Saved like mad doing every odd job known to man to afford to buy a Trek 8000 with those deep section rims they used to have (Mt. Aero?) but it got robbed whilst I was helping Mum with her gardening business. After protracted wrangling with the insurance company I end up with the last of the decent generations of Marin Bear Valleys (before they went through that horrid neon and weird paint phase) before getting a Kona Exposif with cool forks (the ones above Project 2s).

Discovered girls and other activities which kept me up all night so a 5 year hiatus before getting back into it in a big way with a daft long list of bikes cumulating now in a beautiful Tripster and Chinese carbon BB200 / ultra / adventure bike.

Cant get enough of bikes or riding still!

Beats golf!

[firedfromthecircus]

before getting a Kona Exposif with cool forks (the ones above Project 2s).

Track Two forks?



Very cool.

And there are legions of people who love the zolatone Marins era!

[paramart]

quicker than walking , always had a bike since 6yrs old the old rod braked ss tanks, first decent bike mid 80s muddy fox explorer which my mate still rides, fell into the suspension trap, but always had a ss rigid,
remember my first camping w/end to dovedale took an eternity ill equiped but made sure we had fags and beer,

[firedfromthecircus]

I had the usual bikes as a kid, including BMX as I am from that era. Had progressed to a Raleigh Winner 10speed by about 1986. But then skateboarding took over and by the time all the kids in the estate were on ATBs (Muddy Fox Couriers, Saracen Tufftrax, Raleigh Mustngs, Ridgeback 602s, Spec Hardrocks, etc) I was back on a BMX with a second hand Torker bought from one of the posh boys. We still rode them in the woods though.
Did the usual thing after I left school of discovering cars and booze, and apart from the odd trip out on the Torker didn't do much riding. Then in '95 while on a pre-army fitness kick took up mountain biking on a s/h Giant Terrago. Fell in love with riding and once in the army and earning some cash splashed out on a 1997 Stumpjumper M2.

Rode that fairly regularly until about 2005. Then barely for the next few years until my cycling nadir when in 2010 I went an entire calendar year not turning a pedal at all! First time I think since the 1970's.
Settled into comfortable married life I got as unfit as ever. I was riding a Trials motorcycle by now and decided to take the old Stumpy out for a bit of balance practice and a laugh. My god, I nearly died. I knew I was unfit, but I hadn't realised just how bad it had got. That was summer 2011 and I haven't gone more than 2 weeks without a ride since. And having given up fags and booze I had (comparatively for me) lots of money to spunk on bikes. So one or two have come and gone since then. Though mostly just come tbf.

[jameso]

I got into BMXing in the 80's which involved mostly building brick/plank jumps, learning to wheelie (I was never any good) and pulling skids (I was VERY good)

Same here .. Always liked the simplicity of the BMX though .. some things come around again.
Got a cheap hi-ten Raleigh ATB in '87-88 from the local Raleigh dealers. The Raleigh had gone through 2 sets of forks and a few wheels by the time it was sold on (suprised it was worth anything then in hindsight) but also got me to the gardening and car-washing jobs that earned me a 1990 Marin Pine Mountain.

Brilliant bike, started doing some races in 89/90, the Bicycle Action Hard Ride, the Malverns, the Cheshire Classic at Bosley, Manley local series. Pretty soon races became 'camping, getting drunk, not doing very much real racing' when we were about about 17. Best thing that ever happened to XC racing I think..
Love that Kona up there, always thought that they were pretty much the best-looking bikes ever made. Maybe it's an age thing but the paint, graphics, the Murray-Brodie frame shapes, not quite sure why I went for the Marin in hindsight.

And there are legions of people who love the zolatone Marins era!

I did then : ) but if I was to get into a retro-project it'd be a Brodie.

[rando nomad]

I suppose I was lucky. I grew up in British Columbia, Canada, getting into bikes in the mid 80's just as mountain bikes were coming up from California.
I got a Rocky Mountain hammer when I started working at a small bike shop in 88. Beat it up around Vancouver and up in Whistler before "North Shore" became a thing

The magazine shop near the shop had two MTB magazines- MTB Action and MBUK. So I fell under the spell of Mint Sauce and articles about the Polaris Challenge back before all this light weight stuff became cool.

I had done some touring on a road bike and I kept touring with a mtb, graduating to a Rocky Sirrus (elevated chain stays- lord help me, what was I thinking) and taking it on tours in BC and down under.

Got a Brodie Catalyst in 1993 and it's still at my folks in BC. I used it for daily riding for over 10 years until I got a more "proper" touring bike. One day I'll bring it home with me and restore it to it's glory.

[JohnClimber]

Grifter
Puch Pacemaker
Girls
Work
Marriage
Divorce
Climbing (hence my forum name) but too over weight
Bought a Claud Butler - Rock from Halfords to loose weight
Fell out of love with rock climbing at the same time I fell in love with cycling



The rest is history

[TheBrownDog]

This is making nice reading.

Ive not been without a bicycle since I was 5 or 6 in the early 1970s. They were mostly found objects, but I actually had a full suspension bikes in 1976 after nagging my dad for it for at least a year. It was awful - the forks barely moved, it had a non-functioning coaster brake and it was soooo heavy - and I was glad to see it go when it was stolen out of our garage.

Got into BMX around 1978 when I met a like-minded bike kid at high school. I dont know how either of us managed to avoid fatal injury, some of the things we used to do on those bikes. I remember once we were happily trespassing on a building site and my mate asking me whether it would be a good idea to jump from the unfinished second floor onto a mound of sand below. Duh!!! He landed it. I didn't - broke my left little finger. My BMX was vaguely exciting - a blue and yellow cro-mo Madison with Tuff wheels, a Gold Stem gooseneck, fluted seatpost and colour matched bar/stem/top tube pads.

A few years later we read something in BMX Action magazine about these clunkers being built up in the US and ridden up and down mountain trails, as opposed to just raced down the Repack. We cobbled together some bikes with five gears, the biggest tyres we could find (not a lot of tread though) and cowboy handlebars and started riding them around the trails of Mount Coo-tha on the outskirts of Brisbane. We kept snapping frames and forks but nothing could put us off. God it was fun.

Love bikes. Just love 'em.

[fatbikephil]

+1 raleigh Grifter which I got just before the bmx craze in '80 so it got single speeded and a brooks mx seat to drop some weight and had f**k knocked out of it down the local woods.Then a cheap road bike, saw my first mountain bike in '83 so my road bike got used off road until I got a raleigh maverick. This was followed by a custom framed job, followed by various bikes with increasing amounts of bounce and now back to steel rigid frames...

[SlowRide]

I hadn't ridden a bike since I was a kid. I moved to Steamboat Springs, Colorado three years ago in the worst shape of my life. The first winter I was in Steamboat I started skiing again. Spring came, a buddy put an old Schwinn Moab that was way too small for me in my hands and said "here's what we do in the summer..." I took off alone on my first single track ride ever and loved it. Two years and 16,000 miles later I'm still loving pedaling.

[crewlie]

Started early, and with the proper gear :)
trike by crewlie, on Flickr

Still remember crashing it..into the back of a neighbor's parked car.
Graduated through a second hand bike miles too big for me...more crashes (racing round the block this time), to a RSW16 and then a drop bars racer. I gave my parents hell with constant moaning that I couldn't live without a faster bike. Eventually swapped it at Uni for a Led Zepellin LP, which I'm not sure I ever played. Stupid boy.

Then work and kids took over, till one Sunday about 1990 read an article in the paper "Hell on Wheels" about taking a mountain bike up Helvelyn.
Told my wife it seemed like fun..amazingly she agreed. So two Emmelle bikes (too big again) later and we went. Unfortunately we used Jeremy Ashcroft's route which meant us carrying these two lumps pretty much the whole way up, but the downhill was fun.

hell by crewlie, on Flickr

Despite the pain, mud, mist, rain and the awful bikes, the damage was done.

[Kumquat]

images.jpeg (11.92 KiB) Viewed 4235 times

Got given one of these in 1978.
Have used bicycles for fun and transport ever since.

[Ian]

Potted history for me:

Got a Raleigh Tomahawk when I was 7. Taught myself to ride it without stabilisers or anything
Was great for wheelies, but grew out of that eventually.
Then got a 24" road/ CX bike with drop bars and cantis - great for skids.
Inherited by brothers 650b Raleigh Arena which had something akin to a Mary bar mounted upside down for a really low stretched riding position.
At the age of eleven, I was diagnosed with a cyst in my upper femur. The location of the cyst was so close to the joint that it was at serious risk of breakage, which at that age would have required a hip replacement and several further operations to have my leg lengthened while I continued to grow. I spent about 9 months on crutches or in a wheelchair after the operation while it healed. I was off contact sports at school PE for almost 3 years in total (between first diagnosis, operation and recovery) and advised that I could only do 2 forms of exercise that were low impact - cycling and swimming. I was rubbish at swimming. My parents bought me a Peugeot 10 speed racer when I came out of hospital and I would ride that everywhere.

In 1990 my brother had bought an MTB and suggested I did the same so we could go on a bikepacking trip (or touring, as they called it back then). I saved up my £10 a week from working Saturdays at the grocers (if you need any veg prepping, I'm your man ) and bought a Specialized Hard Rock with Shimano 200GS 21 speed. Get in. Meanwhile, my brother had his Ridgeback nicked and couldn't afford to replace it, so we never went on that tour. And that is still the case today - 24 years later (the tour, not the bike replacement). Much try and redress that...

Needless to say, I made good use of the Spesh and set about riding it all over Wales, Lakes and such places and upgrading bits until it eventually morphed into a Orange Elite. A slightly out of date galley of past bikes is here: http://ianbarrington.com/bikes/

[Cheeky Monkey]

I had the usual random assortment of bikes as a kid (Raleigh Commando, racer etc).

Possessed some no-name MTB style bike in the 90s that was purple and had yellow cable outers. It was used more to get around than "go MTBing". Spent most of my time climbing and trying to paraglide,

Lived in Manchester in 1997 for work and started to realise that hooking up with mates to climb was turning into a weekend of drinking and stuff with the odd route thrown in. Climbing walls didn't involve fresh air. Paragliding, whilst an vaguely exciting experience, also involved some pretty pricey gear, club membership (not really my thing) and a lot (especially as a beginner) of sitting around on hillsides waiting for the wind to come round and/or driving between various launch sites.

Used that logic to convince myself to buy a "proper" MTB in 97 - a Trek 4500 with Vs and elastomer forks. Bought the missus one as well. My Trek is long gone but hers is now living with the sister-in-law and gets used a bit (more than she ever did ).

Since then I've had umpteen bikes and done some great stuff - helibiking in NZ and Moab in the States. In hindsight not sure which has been more "expensive" but the biking was always something I could do with less faff (relatively) than climbing and flying). It's not quite as simple as road biking but it's close.

Not ridden so much over the last couple of years as the mojo seemed to go but this year has been loads better. Still not tramping it enough either.