My relationship with cycles with treaded knobbly tyres is a long and complex one. Once way back in the mists of my competitive youth off-road riding meant winter cyclo-cross races held at muddy playing fields or municipal recreation grounds during the road racing off-season. Like many aspiring junior roadies I subjected myself to these bleak windswept afternoons of cycling purgatory in the belief that taking part would help to maintain my fitness during the winter hiatus from ‘proper’ racing, and that hurtling down a rain slicked grassy slope in close proximity to twenty or so other cycling masochists whose hands were also too cold to use the brakes effectively would sharpen my bike handling skills.

I’m not sure if my bike handling did ever really benefit from these winter races, but I certainly perfected my technique for straightening handlebars out after a crash whilst gouging the mud out of my eyes with the other hand before attempting to remount my faithful steed in one fluid motion………..  Ah yes, my faithful steed. In these halcyon days before carbon fibre, disc brakes and mud defying clipless sPuds my winter race bike was a true multi-purpose machine. A venerable steel framed Holdsworth Tourer (or was it a Raleigh? the passage of time has made this slightly uncertain) it took me to school during the week, then come friday afternoon it unceremoniously had its rear rack unbolted and the clunky Eveready lights mountings removed in preparation for its weekend duties. Solid, dependable and leg wearyingly heavy it was a world away from the machinery which would soon usher in the newest cycling craze which was about to transform riding for so many youngsters in the mid to late 1980’s.

The first proper Mountain Bike I ever saw was one of the very first Speczalised Rockhopper’s. This would have been around 1986 ish I think. Two lads from my year at school had decided to undertake that charity ride rite of passage that is the Lands End to John O’Groats adventure. They both toiled long and hard raising money to buy bikes suitable for the trip, and as neither of them happened to be members of the school cycling club advice was sort from, and freely dispensed by the guru’s of the school cycling fraternity such as myself. One of the lads listened to our sage like words of wisdom and spent his hard-earned folding cash on that doyen of the long distance ride in the UK the Dawes Galaxy. Drop bars, hand crafted Reynolds 531st frameset, mudguards front and rear and enough braze on fittings for racks and bottle cages as it was humanly possible to fit.

His partner in pedalling on the other hand completely ignored us and turned up at school with this bright yellow monstrosity with flat handlebars, 26′ wheels and some odd way of changing gears which he proudly announced were called ‘thumbshifters’. Oh, and it didnt appear to have a back brake, until closer inspection located it behind the bottom bracket shell under the chainstays. This odd arrangement he told us was called a ‘U Brake’ and was a break through in cycling technology. This he informed us loftily was the latest thing from America. It was called a mountain bike and unlike the Raleigh Grifters of our youth which it vaguely resembled this was ‘the real thing’ and ‘the scene was massive’ Anyway as he was a notorious big head whose dad seemed able to supply him with the latest and best in everything from bomber jackets to digital watches this latest manifestation of one upmanship was largely discounted by us cycling aficionados as just another fad which would never catch on.

Fast forward a few years to 1990 and my dreams of being the next Sean Yates had gone the same way as my school career. (finito). I was still riding my road bike but only racing sporadically whilst settling into a long traditional engineering apprenticeship. I’d also acquired a twenty a day Silk Cut habit and a serious liking for hop based refreshment, both of which were fast eroding what remained of my competitive juices. One of my fellow apprentices was a fellow cyclist, but unlike me his preferred surface was loose dirt not tarmac. A gritty son of Sheffield called Mike he had been immersed in the nascent MTB scene from the start and his cycling pedigree was similar to mine in ability but inverted in chosen discipline. He only rode his road bike to train for Mountain Bike races, and he soon filled me with stories of exciting races in which all the competitors seemed to know each other and more importantly went to the pub together afterwards. It all sounded very different from the rigid cut and thrust of road racing that I’d been schooled in. His bike was different as well from the rather agricultural looking Rockhopper I remembered from school. A sleek-looking machine with odd-looking straight bladed forks and a crazy multicoloured splatter paint scheme it was from another exotic sounding brand I’d never heard of – ‘Kona’ the head badge announced, whilst other stickers acclaimed it to be ‘Race Light’ and a ‘Cinder Cone’ designed by somebody called ‘Joe Murrey’. It certainly stood out when I overtook him on the way to college in my rusty old Mini 1000.

His enthusiasm was infectious and soon my trusty Holdsworth had made way for a shiny new Peugeot MTB in a shocking hue of clashing neon green and purple. My monthly cycling magazine of choice became ‘MTB Pro’ not ‘Winning Cycle Racing’ and my heroes became names like David Baker and Tim Gould instead of Robert Millar and Malcolm Elliot. I even entered the odd race (all cross-country in those days) and thanks to the last embers of my road riding fitness didn’t do too badly on occasion. I have to point out at this point that in the early nineties cross-country MTB courses were not as a rule very technically challenging. As anything over 40mm of almost rock hard elastomer front suspension was considered excessive it was almost all ways quicker to jump off and heft the bike over or down terrain that would be considered quite tame and modest by todays standards.

Gradually I rode my road bike less and less but enjoyed the increasing mountain biking mileage more and more. Being in full-time employment and running a car enabled trips to the Peak District and the Lakes to be undertaken to ride some of the routes and trails I was reading about each month in MTB Pro and MBUK and I found the increasing complexity of MTB’s and their constantly evolving nature also scratched my engineers itch to constantly fiddle with things and try out all the latest widgets. I’m ashamed to say I remember deriving almost as much pleasure from experimenting with the composition of the elastomer stack in my Pace RC36 forks as I did from riding my bike……….

Life on an MTB seemed at this point infinitely less stressful, more friendly and less all-consuming than riding on the Road. I could do the odd race if I liked, or I could devote a weekend to travelling to the Peak District, camping in Edale with some mates and spending Sunday toiling up Jacobs Ladder before scaring ourselves stupid trying to ride back down it. This pre-trail center era now seems quite quaint and almost backward in the light of todays riding. Downhill racing which was very much a fringe interest seemingly only undertaken by foreigners with odd sounding names and even odder haircuts riding bikes that could barely be pedaled on the flat, nevermind up a hill. Cross country races tended to be won by a handful of pro racers who also rode on the domestic road scene for small trade teams such as Raleigh and Peugeot. Riding was somehow just riding, and riders were just riders. There were seemingly far fewer labels such as ‘enduro’ or ‘trail specific’ that could be used to pigeon hole riders, bikes or even the trails themselves. Rose tinted spectacles? hopeless nostalgia? maybe so.

Anyway, fast forward ten or so years and marriage, small people and the annoying necessity to need to make enough money to pay the mortgage had all conspired to keep me mostly off any sort of bike. There may also have been a teeny dollop of laziness involved as well, but I’m still in denial about that……. ……….. The bike collection had been whittled down to a carbon fibre framed road bike which was bought to reclaim my lost fitness, but had become a hanging ornament in my garage. My beloved Pace RC200 F2 MTB had some years before been swapped for a tropical fish tank. (Sometimes in a fit of self-reproach I surf eBay or retrobikes.com looking at how much those early  Pace’s are worth now, then I like to glance over at the algae incrusted fish tank the kids have ignored for the last few years and sigh deeply.)

As ever it took some external stimulus to get me back into the literal and metaphorical saddle. A change of shift at work brought me into the orbit of several keen mountain bikers who all rode regularly as a group. They were unfortunately mostly younger and fitter than me, but as our ages still fell practically within the same decade with the fatal bravado of middle age goading me on I assumed my vast experience on two wheels would make up for any minor physical decline I might have suffered. They also talked of these strange places they rode at called ‘Trail Centers’ which seemed to be a sort of British version of an Alpine ski resort but with mud and rocks replacing the snow and ice. Apparently these man-made or crafted trails were graded and waymarked so you couldn’t get lost, there were no stray dogs or ramblers to get in the way or shout at you and many of these places even had cafes and bike shops on site.It all sounded almost to good to be true. Clearly things had moved on in the years I had spent sitting on the sofa and I obviously had some catching up to do.

Firstly I needed to acquire a bike. Magazines were furtively perused in the aisles of WHSmiths, the Internet was consulted and the bank balance checked. Stock was taken and chin scratching ensued. How much? Do I really need 140mm of travel front AND back? (This was about 2009…..) Who the hell are Lapierre and Santa Cruz? Oh and HOW MUCH??? Lateral thinking was clearly required. Firstly it was clear my first proper MTB for years wasn’t going to be an off the peg item. I knew and remembered enough to know that any of the bikes I could afford were just not going to cut it, mostly as I’ll freely admit due to my still active ‘bike snobbery gland’ which was still working well after all these years. Secondly it was going to be a hardtail, both for reasons of cost and because that’s obviously what ‘real’ bikers rode who were made of sterner stuff and not susceptible to the vagaries of fashion. Besides I’d had a go on a state of the art full susser back in about 1990 and it was rubbish (GT RTS3 I think if anyone remembers them) so full suspension was clearly just a marketing ploy designed to snag the gullible and fat of wallet.

eBay I rapidly discovered was my friend, and despite the passage of time bikes when split down into their component parts were still pretty much as I remembered. Like most people who think they know best I stuck to what I knew and still assumed would work best. A nice sensible secondhand steel frame, some mid priced 100mm travel forks (surely nobody could possibly ever need or use more than 100mm of travel?) and I was most relieved to discover Shimano still made XT gears. Disc brakes were a bit of a head scratcher, if I’d been able to lock a wheel 10 years ago with V brakes why did I need discs? But they had to be fitted as that was all that the newfangled frame and forks I’d bought would accept. I found a suitable set in the sale section of this huge website called ‘Chain Reaction Cycles’ who seemed to sell absolutely everything about £20 cheaper than my local bike shop.

The rest as they say is history. I could regal you with a blow-by-blow account of my first rides upon the brave new trails of places such as Coed Llandegla or Cannock Chase. I could attempt to bring tears of laughter or sympathetic pain to your eyes by describing the consequences of the inevitable burst of over-confidence that followed a couple of months of managing the odd black graded trail without mishap.

What I will say is yes, mountain biking had changed during the years of beer and crisp consumption, but by God it was still fun. There maybe a bit less ‘mountain’ about it now for most people, but the immediacy of the fix that a modern trail centres can give you in terms of guaranteed riding buzz has definitely changed the sport forever. I still ride natural trails on occasion, but in our time pressured world the attraction of not having to waste time peering myopically at a damp Ordnance Survey Map or only finding out that the trail that looked so attractive from the safety of your living room is actually a unrideable sheep infested bog is hard to ignore.

And of course as you can probably guess I quickly realised that 100mm of travel on just the front is really rather punishing for a man of my advancing years, and that modern full suspension bikes had come along way from the heavy un-pedallable things I remembered. Mountain biking for me tends to be an all day expedition. Planned in advance, marked on the calendar to fit round the demands of work, family and riding companions they are days to be looked forward to, savoured then reminisced about afterwards. They are rarely days on the bike I haven’t enjoyed, and even when I’ve driven home with more bruises and less flesh than I set out with there’s usually a positive memory of a climb conquered or a sketchy moment saved to offset the pain.

In my heart of hearts however I’ll always instinctively class myself as a ‘Roadie’ and skinny tyres and drop bars will always be I think due almost to pure muscle memory alone where I feel most comfortable. I’m just better on a road bike – simples. Riding Mountain Bikes will always require more concentration, effort and for me at least will always feel a little odd for the first mile of every ride, but in some strange way that almost makes me value my time off the black stuff more these days.

I still despair of ever learning how to ‘manual’ and ‘bunny- hop’ mind.