BITD - Back In The Day

1995 bianchi lynx.  steel. fully rigid, cantilever brakes. 3x7 drivetrain with grip shift. added toe clips fairly quickly.

51 now. Got my Giant Terrago in 1989 as I had just stopped racing Bmx and got the bug after riding my friends Muddy Fox Courier.
Bear trap bmx pedals, Tioga Factory Dh tyres and some Renthal speedway bars as I did'nt like the narrow stock bars, I was waaay ahead of the game!!

IIRC 1997 Trek OCLV hardtail. RS Judy fork with Englund air cartridges.

Replaced that in 2000 with a Cannondale F2000 hardtail, blue with yellow Volvo Cannondale team paint job. Headstock with 75mm of travel. Super early disc brakes. I used to race the 24 hours of adrenaline race at the 96 Olympics trails in Conyers GA with the shop I worked at. 

You guys are all old…. 😂

My first real "upgrade" was swapping the rigid fork on my rockhopper for an AMP research linkage fork. The only thing I can say about that fork is it was marginally better than the next fork I bought, a judy with the elastomer guts swapped over to Englund air cartridge. It required inflation before and during every ride. 

Am I the only one here who has ever ridden toe clips? I feel old. I am old I guess. I used to ride my toe clip pedals in soccer cleats with rubber spikes for better foot retention. Nice and tight in the chunder on my fully rigid bike but soft enough to be able to rip them out when in need.

I's like to think that I inspired this thread with this post from the Tech Roumors thread. 

My first was a Schwinn Sidewinder which was like a factory klunker with two brakes and five gears. Then a Dorado Sherpa which was a company that sold factory seconds from Specialized. Then GT hardtails with a first year Judy complete with the plastic cartridges that blew on the first ride. First full suspension was a Santa Cruz Heckler with an OG Bomber. and a Formula disk brake. Then a first year Super 8. I can't remember the progression from there, but it includes 7x7 Turner as a trail bike long before Enduro was a thing and a Giant Team DH that I bought from Jeff Lenosky. Before I had to quit riding due to MS I had started building my own frames including two dirt jump/ street trials hardtails, A slopestyle bike based on an OG Bullit swingarm and a 240mm Dh bike based on a second gen Bullit.

First proper MTB was a ‘93 Marin Muirwoods. Upgraded almost every component on it including some Marzocchis XC51s - they kept blowing up so ended up with some Manitou M-Sport. Loved them. 

Eventually swapped the frame out for a Univega Aluminum 703 with RS Psylo XCs, XT V brakes and Azonic bug rise bars. Loved that bike. Also had some (and still got somewhere) the original PD-636 DX pedals, after using I think Tioga Toe clips and pedals for a few years..

Smash a thumbs up on this post if you confirm all three: 1) you know what a Bassworm is, 2) you know how to install one, 3) you installed one on your own bike. I do, I do, and I did.

1990 Stumpjumper Comp. Full XT with top mount shifters. Panaracer Smoke/Dart combo. Flite saddle, Onza bar ends, Shimano 737 clipless pedals. I did used to ride to clips and had some Nike mtb shoes that definitely had a sole that locked pretty well in against the top rear of the pedal. 

It’s still at my parents place and, to my girlfriend’s chagrin, now it’s coming back on the plane with us next trip to visit. 

back in our day, downhill races were uphill both ways!

I raced my first national dh race in ‘94 on toeclips and a rigid fork.  Missy Giove bunnyhopped my carcass in the first corner of my first practice lap, and we’ve been pals ever since.

There are larger dampers on RC trucks! Not sure if it ever did anything other than look cool. And @Big Bird - definitely started with toe clips with tennis shoes. Seemed great at the time!

Got my first bike from REI in 1987, my brother was working for REI and got a Univega with toe clips, etc.  1996 Marin Palisades Trail complete with RS quadra 21r, toe clips, Bassworm (because it helped so much with shifting, lol!).  Took out the elastomers from the Quadra and replaced them with steel springs for a plush 2" of travel.  Broke the head tube couple times and  replaced it in 1998 with a Diamondback DBR V4 with Marz z1 and Stratos Helix shock (which was actually pretty awesome), full XTR with Vee-brakes and jenson clipless pedals, I'm 57.  

SRAM Bassworm lured me back to mountain bike in 2004. 1) then I learned it was meant for grip shift. 2) had to be talked out of installing one since clutch deraileurs were eventually going to become a thing 3) instead fitted Jagwire (edit) Full Metal Jacket to the cable disk on an Iron Horse

Smash a thumbs up on this post if you confirm all three: 1) you know what Full Metal Jacket is, 2) you know how to install one, 3) you installed one on your own bike. I do, I do, and I did.

My first bike was a stick and a hoop

Does anyone really want to read my 42 years of mtbing stories? Or maybe you've been on a ride, bike or lift, with me and already heard them. I'll start with toe clips since that's what brought us all together here. And since google couldn't find a photo of a Rivat cyclocross shoe I will have to post one of the few old photos I could find of myself wearing the shoes. Back story for the photo, this may have been 84ish, Pearl Izumi photo shoot. After this photo I told the photographer about the "jumps" behind our house and we went there for some photos. Of course I eventually crashed which destroyed the samples I was wearing which the photog was not happy about. Funniest part was months later when I got a call from a modeling agency asking if I knew what "get air" meant and if I could do it on a mountain bike. Here we are some 40 years later, my modeling career, or any career for that matter, never took off but I'm still getting air!

It was important to use straps with some give so you could yank your foot out, Binda Supers were not a good choice. I recall the Campy steel clips being the only ones that could withstand the abuse of mtb.

I still ride toe clips on my track bike... but I'm also stuck in the 2005 era messenger fad. Yes, I have a chrome bag and stretched ears. Yes, I was a messenger. No, I didn't make more than minimum wage doing it. 

GET OFF MY LAWN..........bloodykidsthesedaynorespectinmydaywe'dshootem

Also started in '89 on a fully rigid Trek 7000 with toe clips. I was more a follower of fashion though, I remember thinking I was going to run out of space to mount my brakes when I wanted to add some X-Lite bar ends to my 550mm bars. 🤣

I also remember ogling at my mate's flex stem when he first got it (1990 maybe?) and thinking how cool it was. Good times.

Ah, the glory days! I remember the struggle of getting those cantis dialed in and the joy of bombing down trails with barely any suspension. Your Stumpjumper setup sounds like a dream, especially with that fork. I’ll trade you some ancient Powerbars for a peek at those sweet GG hubs!

From 1990 onwards, I had to wait 3 months for mountain bike action to reach our shops in Australia to see if Tomac had one the last world cup.......these days people are up in arms because Enduro is not live streamed......

I just remembered a good one... Nowadays with disk brakes we have plenty of braking power for one finger braking. Back on my fully rigid with cantilever brakes in front and a u-brake near the BB in the back, I would hold onto the bars with my thumb and pointer finger and use the middle, ring and pinky fingers to three finger brake.

I think the LX levers were 3 finger and XT 2 finger… never had DX in between (I think that was a thing but, yes, I’m old and my memory ain’t great). Either way, it’s nice to keep more of the hand on the grips nowadays!