The 30 th Anniversary thread

I've been cycling since 1975 (age of 2), but it really started when I bought my first "real" bike somewhere early in 1991. To celebrate the 30 th anniversary of this glorious moment (😁) I promised myself to finish all the 1991 bikes in my collection by this summer.

In this thread I will bundle all my 1991 bikes. That is: as soon as I consider them "done". The next months, you will (hopefully) find here:

Scott Windriver mountainbike (the bike it all started with)
Scott Boulder mountainbike
Scott Jr Racing mountainbike

Panasonic Mc Pro mountainbike
Panasonic PR6000 road bike

Look Mi 80 mountainbike
Look Mi 90 mountainbike

Alpinestars Cro Mega DX mountainbike

Subbed, Looking forward to photographs.

Looking forward seeing the alpinestars, need some inspiration to get going on my project.
If your stuck for any 26” parts gimme a shout

Thanks for the offer, @Jay75 , I'll let you know when I'm missing parts but I believe I've got most of what I need. For most unfinished projects it's only a matter of fixing cables.

let me start at the beginning. My best friend back in 1991 had a Scott Boulder. For me, it was the first decent mountainbike I saw up close. Where I lived, the few people that rode mountainbikes, all stayed close to what they knew (= road bikes) and mountainbikes were in first place "winter bikes" so there was nothing really decent around. Trek and more of them boring things from local frame builders. So compared to those, my friends' Scott Boulder was vivid ànd "the real stuff". We went to the bike shop where he bought his and I got this 1991 catalogue. I believe I flipped through it until it fell apart.

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After counting my savings it was clear: I'd buy a Boulder myself. But than I'd have exactly the same bike as my friend. Hum, that's not really original... So why not save a bit longer and buy the other bike from that page?

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On June 4 th 1991, I picked up my Scott Windriver. I only had one problem however: how would I tell my parents that I just had spent 40,000 francs (back than a more than average monthly salary) on a bike?

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After that month of house arrest, I finally could use the bike for which it was intended: raging through country roads. That first summer of mountainbiking is burnt in my memory forever and ever.

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In the summer of 1992 I rode my first mountainbike race ever. I never had the intention to race but a relative organized a race in my hometown so he called up everyone who had a mountainbike to participate (Mountain biking was still in its infancy and it was not sure if there would be many participants...). I borrowed a jersey (Team Z - yes, it was 1992 and Greg Lemond was a star) and picked up a starting number. It was fun and I dicovered a new hobby: racing. But the Scott wasn't really meant for racing so in 1993 I sold it as I needed funds for a more appropriate (= lighter) bike. End of the Scott Windriver story (part I).

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Subbed for the nostalgia - I wore Z Jersey for my first race (also xc but in 1993)
Great projects and really great photos

I've had several mountainbikes since but never again a Scott... untill some years ago -I suppose due to a midlife crisis- I got into this retro mountainbike thing.

To start with, I searched for the same bike that had it all started for me and after some months of scrolling through ebay and other Marketplaces, I found a Scott Windriver in Germany. The bike was sold as a complete bike (as good as catalog spec) so I just had to give it a decent clean and put some new cables on it. The return of Windriver was a fact.

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some details

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Looks quite similar to a Scott Montana I bought the grrl for pub bike

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A nice side effect of this quest: loads of other 1991 mountainbikes popped up when searching the web. And that's how I got the idea to collect bikes from "my" year 1991. Not all the bikes, but those with a special meaning to me. In the first place Scott bikes as I had been looking at them over and over again when going through the Scott 1991 catalogue.

Nice! And I believe it's from 1991 too.

It wouldn't surprise me, given the similarity in the paint jobs. It's covered in beer can stickers now though.

That's perfect to prevent it from rust. ;-)

Thanks, @Rik_Van_Looy . I believe many kids wore Z-jerseys back than. ;-)

Next bike. As already said, mountainbiking was rather uncommon here in Belgium, 30 years ago. As there was no internet available, our resources were limited to written press. And here in Belgium that meant: pretty nothing worth buying. My friends' dad was an astrophysician who worked for ESA and back then, he had to travel to the states (NASA) on a regular basis. He became our courier and provided us with magazines we only new from stories in local press. We were 18, our classmates stared at Pamela Anderson in Playboy, my friend and I went crazy flipping through Mountain bike Action.

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It was in Mountainbike Action I first saw the Alpinestars bikes. Elevated chainstays were pretty common back then but for one or other reason, only Alpinestars could float my boat. When a couple of years ago a Cro Mega DX frameset popped up on Retrobike, I couldn't resist. Today the capstone for this build arrived.

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Love a good story! Subbed

No need to explain why we called this period "the neon nineties", I guess...

For this build, I didn't have the ambition of going catalog spec. First I choose to build it with an 8 speed XT (a groupset I had from a 1991 Panasonic bike) but when completely unexpected a 1992 Cro Mega DX popped up, I decided to buy it and mount the parts on my 1991 frameset. For a better fit (and for aesthetical reasons) I mounted a Syncros stem in stead of the (rusty) one from Alpinestars.

Specs: ALpinestars Cro Mega DX frameset, DX groupset (seatpost and shifters = XT), Mavic 232 rims on DX hubs, DX pedals, Zoom 155 bars, Syncros Cattleprod stem, OnZa bar ends, Selle Bassano saddle. Apart from the re-issue Panaracer Smoke tyres, all parts from between 1991 and 1993.

And the ECS (Elevated Chain Stays) make this bike climb like a mountain goat and pretty nervous on the flat. One of my favourite rides.

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Excellent history 👌🏻

I also had an Alpinestars Cromega in 1992. My first proper mountain bike and paid for with my student loan ....
Absolutely loved that bike and was gutted when having lent it to a flatmate, he managed to lose it. He did pay me back eventually and I promptly bought a GT Team Avalanche . Of all the bikes I have had over the years the Alpinestars is probably the one I would like to have in the collection today.