The ‘Naughties’ in bikes
Naughties in bikes
Everyone else seems to be in their stride posting best of lists and the like so I thought I’d look back at the last ten years, what I’ve been riding and how things have changed…..
Most notably I suppose at the start of the last decade I was still fairly heavily obsessed with XC racing (although that may make a bit of a comeback for me this year). I was sponsored by Southwater Cycles and my Kona spent two years in my loft as I had a sucsession of nice Cannondale race bikes to ride. So I started the decade with a Cannondale F4000SL, this was a super tricked out bike, very light and very fast too.
Cannondale F4000SL
Then the Southwater Cycles thing eventually came to an end, brought mainly by the fact they wanted me to wear a beige race shirt 
The trusty Kona Hei Hei came back out of retirement. This bike lasted right the way through to 1998, I had it 14 years and it had countless groupset changes, forks, wheels and everything else that goes with it. If you look at the 2000 photo and then the 2008 one you can see it went from a race set up to what would be considered a fairly trail friendly set up today. It was an amazing machine and it was sad to see it go, but it was only corrected for a 63.5mm travel fork and it had no disk mounts! It worked out to have cost me well less than a tenth of a penny per mile for the use I got from it 
Hei hei 2000 - XTR v brakes, pace forks 75mm travel
Hei hei 2008 - 120mm fork, disk brakes, tubeless tyres
July 2008 everything changed, I bought a Cove Stiffee, essentially as a plaything I thought I’d ride occasionally. How wrong was I? The Kona went into the shed and only came out another handful of times for races before it was sold. This was the future, my only regret was that I didn’t get a bike like this earlier. 130mm forks 200mm disks, tubeless 2.35″ tyres run way down low. This was here to stay, or was it?
Cove Stiffee - big forks, big brakes, big tyres - BIG FUN!
Despite my love affair with the Stiffee I still fancied the ride qualities of titanium and after some careful ‘negotiation’ at home decided it was time to get rid of the Kona and the Cove Stiffee and move on to the best of both worlds, the Cove Hummer…..
Cove Hummer - trail perfection? Well I think so
So this brings us up to date. I love this bike and I’m sure I’ll have it for a long time. Like the trusty Kona Hei Hei of old I don’t doubt others will come and go in the mean time, there will be changes of forks and other kit, but I reckon this will be around for a while….
Of course as well as these there has been a constant parade of road bikes, cyclocross bikes, BMX’s, singlespeeds and jump bikes going through the revolving doors of the shed! They have all had many swaps of components, but really none of them have really hung around for long. You can have a look at all the photos in the gallery here.
What are your favourites and not so favourites from the last ten years? Lets hear about it in the comments…..
Hummerlicious
January 3rd, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Awesome collection dude.
Of mine I’m most grateful for the Scott Expert Racing that started it all, but typically it didn’t hang around for long! I regret selling the Nicolai the most – just wish I had one that could have run normal gears other than that heavy, draggy Rohloff! Although if that itself were lighter and less draggy it would have been perfection. The one that gave me the most enjoyment was the Chameleon, no question. Most interesting was the Kona A and the best looking probably the Surly 1×1, with the Yeti 575 being the most bling!
And then came the road bikes…!
January 3rd, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Faves – Cannondale F400 and 2009 Lynskey Hummer
Not so Fave – Hmm how about the 2008 Hummer with a tendency to snap?
January 3rd, 2010 at 7:17 pm
For the majority of the first half of the decade I was firmly planted on my Snott (Scott Racing Expert – 1998 vintage I think). It took a kicking and I got through front rims quicker than rear tyres!
In 2003 I took up the dirty, filthy Single Speed habit, getting hold of a Dawes Edge One for ‘alf a monkey. Pervert.
Also in 2003 I acquired a green BMX – which can now be seen underneath Trawler.
In 2004 the Banshee landed… with a resounding thump and leaving a fairly hefty dent in the ground. The Scott breathed a sigh of relief.
In 2005 I got a Dialled Bikes Prince Albert. Mainly to take out to Freeride Spain. Transplant all kit from the Banshee (Which was too heavy to consider riding up them Spanish hills) and off I went.
The kit was switched from PA to Banshee and back at regular intervals for the next year and a bit, until around the end of 2006 when I had enough bits and bobs to build up both – happy days.
These days the PA and SS get the lions share of the abuse, but the others do come out to play from time to time.
And that’s it bike-wise for me in the last 10. A modest collection of fairly cheap bikes that I have wrung every last pennies worth out of.
Pics of them all on my flickr pages if you need some visual assistance!
January 4th, 2010 at 10:45 am
GT Tequesta – 96-99
GT LTS – 99-2006
Specialized Stumpjumper FSR – 2006-2007
Dialled Bikes Morning Glory – 2007-2009
Ellsworth Truth – 2007-2009
Cove Handjob – 2009 – present
January 4th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
I started the decade with a Massi hardtail and a Sunn Duall downhill bike that I’d replaced my 1st wife with. It was my introduction to downhilling, mainly at Penshurst. I loved it and I rode it till it broke. That got replaced with a Spesh Enduro Mk2 in black, broke that jumping of Judges seat and got a warranty replacement white one. Sold that and got my 1st Ellsworth Joker (that I raced both xc and downhill on) and added my first road bike too (a Spesh allez Elite). I was then lucky with some inheritance cash and got my 1st Ellsworth Truth which was by far the sexiest bike I’d ever owned, and changed the Joker frame for the newer 7″ model.
That takes me to now, when I have a second Truth (for sale…) the Joker and a loverly new Spesh Tarmas roady.
Doing this has made me realise I’ve loved all the bikes I’ve had, and I’ve been lucky to have not had any duffers. But, my three current bikes are probably all my favourites, for different reasons…
January 7th, 2010 at 9:53 am
I started off about 5 years ago getting back on a bike by getting a Giant Yukon to cycle to the train station and back on. I then progressed to a bit of road cycling at the weekends on it until I discovered bridleways and then further off road. A Giant NRS1 turned up next which was kept for about 6 months until I sold it and bought a Stumpjumper. This was a very capable bike which saw me join Sussex MTB before buying an old-stock Giant VT frame and swapping most of the bits over, selling what was left of the spesh (mainly the frame and forks), buying an adjustable seatpost and Manitou Nixon forks and still being in profit!!
The VT has recently made way for the Blur LT, which is still my favorite of the lot and far more capable than me…… I still have the Yukon which started it all, still going to the station every day…..