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"mountain biking" for me as a teenager in New England in the 90s was taking my hard-fork, hard-tail univega out for a ride on a dirt road under some power lines
by nateburke 5y ago
"mountain biking" for me as a teenager in New England in the 90s was taking my hard-fork, hard-tail univega out for a ride on a dirt road under some power lines, with 2-3 other kids.
The idea of lift-served downhill biking never crossed our minds. You needed suspension to do any real woods singletrack because the roots and rocks were too numerous. But suspension put the price of a decent bike closer to 1000 bucks rather than <500 and four digits seemed to be a bridge too far for most of our parents' huffy-anchored understanding of "bicycle cost" let alone budget in the 90s.
So we bought bar ends for 30 bucks of saved up lawn mowing cash and told ourselves that they helped for climbs.
- hcurtiss 5y agoSame story. Bought a rigid Rockhopper XC in 1993 as an eighth grader with $400 of summer wages. Started life as an off road machine, but converted to an after-school work commuter, then a college commuter, then a law school commuter, then a law firm commuter. Thousands and thousands of miles. At some point it lost its bar ends, along with most of the original drivetrain. Now that I live outside of town, it sees less action. So does its owner. My mid-section tells me I should get back on the nearly 30 year old bike hanging in my garage.