Every few years mountain biking seems to be gripped by retro fever, whether it’s updated lookalikes of classic bikes, in-depth magazine articles, or Facebook groups full of pictures of mushroom-hatted riders jumping out of the bomb hole at the Malverns Classic. One of the things I like about this particular point in human history is how accessible the past is. I love exploring the culture of years gone by, cackling over kitschy vintage adverts, watching films where the thrills are provided by unconvincing stop-motion animation rather than unconvincing CGI. My living room is dominated by a stack of dogeared vinyl. But as far as I’m concerned, the endless reminiscences about Flexstems and pictures of Paul’s Components rasta mechs can do one.
You see, I missed out on all this stuff the first time round. I came to mountain biking late in life, when it was already fairly mainstream and knowledge was just a mouse click away. My formative rides were often at (spit…) trail centres. My first set of Bombers weren’t the classic orange Z1s, they were MX Comps with all the sophisticated internal engineering of a tube of Smarties. And my bikes aren’t classics, they’re just old.
Unlike an old piece of music, a vintage film poster, or a classic cocktail, you can’t really experience the retro mountain bike scene today. Say ‘whisky sour’ and I start salivating slightly. Say ‘snowflake wheel’ and I unconsciously check that my front teeth are still intact.