So, I’m at my folks’ house for Christmas. I’m bikeless, as the sacks of presents fills the car to its brim. Apart, that is, for some new products that Matt wants me to test and my brother Dominic to photograph.
Opening the garage we notice our old bikes. A fluorescent Muddy Fox ‘Courier Mega’ (now attached to our dad’s turbo trainer) belonging to me, and a Saracen ‘Special Edition’ to my brother. Sod it, we think, let’s do the product shots on these.
And, you know what, we had a ball. It was bloomin’ marvellous messing about on our old bikes. For me, in particular, it was nice to forget about dreaming of replacing my current bikes for the latest newest product on the market, and remember why I got into mountainbiking in the first place…
The Muddy Fox was the first proper mountain bike I had. It’s fluorescence made sense in the late 1980s, rather than making me wince as this 80s revival colour does now. Getting back on the steed, it brought back memories of hairing down the forest trails, with absolutely no thoughts that the amount of suspension I had wasn’t enough, like I now do on my Yeti race bike. This bike is where it all started for me, a place where I just went for it, rather than wimped out blaming a lack of travel for my failings.
Sure, I had a Grifter and a Tomahawk before it, but this was the first proper off road bike that I had. The memory particularly fond because I bought it with my own cash.
My brother’s Saracen was a marvel of lightness, great for the ‘action’ shots that we took. Or was it because we couldn’t be bothered to detach the Muddy Fox from the Turbo trainer?
Still have your first bike? Send in a picture and we’ll put it up on this thread.