Ripping it up in the year 2000 — the bikes I was riding 25 years ago

Bleary and cheery-eyed, as the jukebox and drunken dancing is paused, I wobble and watch as the hands of the old analogue clock in the wall of the local village pub slowly but surely moved ever closer to that once-in-a-lifetime dawn of a new century and new millenium. It was about as rowdy as could be, as it always was in these parts. New Year’s Eve was the night that would be talked about in the village for the following 364 days, only this time it was very different, or at least we thought it would be.

Hopes, dreams, fears, new beginnings... sure, they all come along with any New Year, but a new millennium? As long as the digital clocks and computer systems of the world didn’t implode as their counters hit the year 2000 digits, which was something we were led to believe may happen.

Luckily, when the clock struck midnight the world didn’t explode, and I was pounced on instead. Sitting here now it’s had to believe that was 25 years ago, and at that time it would have been unimaginable to envisage how life, the world, and even bikes would change in the years ahead.

To say the 1990s had been a bit of a rough, foggy fixed-wheel ride with my hands tied to my feet would be an understatement, and the months leading up to that night had run true to that theme; so I was ohh so happy to leave that decade, and the century, behind. That said, it had certainly been an epic time as far as my own cycling life and the bikes that I’d been riding had been concerned, and so do bear with me and my analogue memory as I try to recount the bikes I was riding around that time, and the changes that followed in the few years after that...

Bondage, long ends & green Oranges

(Steve Thomas)

The 90s had been massive for bike tech and development, largely thanks to the mountain bike boom. My own bike stable had moved on from a steel Columbus-tubed mid 1980s Concorde with chrome forks and a custom Reynolds 531c Roy Cottingham road bike with downtube shifters, through to a series of Raleigh Dyna-Techs and one very nice, polished and lugless steel Raleigh, also with chrome forks (sold later to a friend).

My main everyday road bike at that time was an old titanium Raleigh Dyna-Tech, which I’d had for about 3-4 years, a leftover from my time of Raleigh sponsorship in the 90s. It started out as carbon grey and purple, but was later resprayed bright orange and badged as an Orange, as I was riding Orange MTBs for a while.

I just found a few photos of me riding these two bikes (along with the steel Raleigh) in a book a I wrote in the mid-90s, and had forgotten that both had a quill stem and old-style headset, as well as man-sized Cinelli Eubious bars and “one of a kind”  Diodora clipless pedals. The pedals were strange things, though I do still have a new pair. Sadly (or thankfully, depending on what you think of them) finding shoes that would accept the cleats is all but impossible now.

The Dyna-Tech groupset was Shimano STI, probably Ultegra/105 (but I can’t really remember), with hand-built wheels and 25mm Continental GP4000 tyres. I rode those tyres on all of my bikes for many years, and although they were considered on the wide side back then, compared to what I ride now they were razor blades.

Gearing was 42x52 with 172.5mm cranks (I’ve now gone down to 170mm in an attempt to help with a niggly hip and knee double act) and the rear cassette had an “embarrassing” 25 bottom gear, which I justified from living at the bottom of some of the steepest climbs in the land. Yet now, I’d use lower than this just riding over a motorway bridge!

Raleigh stuck with Dyna-Tech bonding of their higher end frames for many years, possibly a few too many. As for the bike? It survived a few more years, and then somebody looking for a cheap but big road bike got a cracking deal on it, somewhere around 2004/5.

At about the same time, around late 1999/early 2000, I was offered a great deal by friends at a bike shop on a Cannondale aluminum frame, after they scored a job lot of clearance frames that had extended rear ends. Love or hate them, they were certainly different – and well, Cippolini strutted them dressed as a leopard, so how could I say no?

(Steve Thomas)

It came in a dirty blue colourway, and I soon had Orange respray it in bright lime green, the same colour as the O2 MTB I was riding back then. I bought an all-polished silver Campagnolo groupset (Athena, I think), silver deep rim Campag wheels, and a polished silver 3T 13cm stem and black trimmings. It really did look the dogs, and even caught the eye of the unmentionable Mr. Lance Armstrong a couple of months later when I rode the Ride for the Roses in Texas with him.

The thing was, me and 'the Hulk' just didn’t get on. It was probably a tad too small for me, and I really didn’t like it when he got angry. It was twitchy by nature, and the harsh rear stays gave me a lot of back issues. Eventually I left it as a friend’s bike shop to sell. I believe that particular Jolly Green Giant went on to roam the roads around Betws-y-Coed for quite a few years after. 

Back to the future

Sometime in 2000, fate and structural changes saw me back on my familiar Raleigh bikes, although by then they’d all but ditched Dyna-Techs, and I was handed a big aluminum-tubed dark electric blue road bike to ride. It was pretty standard issue and not high-end or expensive, at least not in today’s terms. Straight carbon forks with aluminum steerer and A-headset (my first on a road bike), Shimano 105 groupset, a white titanium Flite saddle (which I still have), and with my regular 25mm tyres and 25t rear sprocket. That was a simple and solid bike, which I rode back to decent form and all over the world for around 18 months. Someone then asked me if they could buy it, and after receiving a very good offer that was the end of that one.

(Steve Thomas)

At the same time, I also had a lovely all-steel Raleigh cyclocross bike. It came in pearl white with gold trimmings, which I always found a bit odd for some reason. I built it up with a mix of MTB drivetrain bits and STI shifters, and basically rode it as a gravel bike, long before the term was coined. It was lovely bike, but the MTB chainset didn’t run right well at times, with lots of chain suck. It was eventually, and reluctantly, sold on after someone I knew wanted a 'cross bike.

During this time Raleigh also distributed Diamondback in the UK, and so the Raleigh was superseded by a bright red Diamondback Monza road bike. This was a very light and snazzy bike to look at, and was also not too expensive for such a high-spec bike: FSA carbon cranks (that creaked from day one), Shimano gearing (I think it was Ultegra), Mavic Cosmos wheels, and these strange double-curved Columbus carbon forks, which flexed and creaked and totally unnerved me.

That bike showed up late December 2000, and it’s first ride was in Majorca. I’d gone there to train with and shoot Jan Ulrich and Team Telekom, only they’d got the dates wrong. I sat for two days on a hotel balcony waiting for the team, as I had to be on another camp in a few days later.

One day I decided to take a ride out, the first on this bike; a steep descent down from the hotel led to a T-junction, I touched the brakes and... nothing. In panic mode I slammed them on as the end of the road neared, skidding like a snake on ice and completely skinning the Continental TT tyre on the rear. The brakes were wired right rear, the opposite to my usual.

This was a great bike, although I was always unnerved by the carbon creaks and fork flex, plus the bottom bracket was a little too low and cranks too long (175mm), and pedal clipping was a regular. Also, on that very first trip the 'Coke can-like' downtube took a ding in transit, making it hard to sell on later. This is why it still lives in a family member's shed on the opposite side of the world now. I did ride it for a week or so back in 2012/14, and little had changed – apart from the gearing I now use being much lower, and I did scrape the pedals a few times too.

Wild West ride and Eastern promises

(Steve Thomas)

Throughout the 2000s, my bikes and life changed a lot. From the above I moved on to a Litespeed Blue Ridge & Merlin XL Compact. The Litespeed came in is as the ultimate all-rounder for my travels, and it was to be my main ride for almost 20 years, wearing through many shifters, brakes, drivetrains and more – although it still has the original Shimano tapered triple cranks. That bike has ridden just about everything, from races to pro training camps to epic gravel and MTB rides, and on long tours. If there’s one bike that stands out to me more than any other, it’s this Litespeed, which is still hanging up behind me; though it needs some serious TLC (and money). At some point I will give it that, for old times’ sake.

The Merlin? Also still hanging, waiting to be revived. That has also travelled the world, but has had a few niggly issues including a slipping seat post, which no matter what I try doesn’t stop dipping down. Currently it has a cheap old 9-speed Shimano groupset on, but also needs a refurb to get it rolling (much like myself).

Also hanging in the cobwebs are the two road bikes that superseded these, and my last two road bikes: a 2006 Giant TCR2 with a triple Ultegra groupset (a great bike but with very worn out drivetrain and shifters), and a Champion System carbon team frame built with Shimano and FSA parts around 10 years ago. The latter is a bike I’ve never really gelled with, and should cannibalise to save the others.

Although I do still get to ride fancy new bikes on occasion, the freshest bike that I now own is a 2016 Ridley gravel bike, a hefty aluminum bone shaker that is also well ridden and worn, and which is my daily ride now.

(Steve Thomas)

Bikes sure have evolved a lot in the past 25 years. Some of that has been gamechanging with some simple common sense and logic being applied, but I think a whole heap of it marketing magic. Wider tyres, much lower gears, a-headsets, far better shifting and hydraulic disk brakes are, for me, the biggest personal gamechangers that have happened since 2000; although a fair amount of that does have to do with getting older and slowing down too.

Either way, I love most of the bikes I still own from around that time, save for one or two!