Awesome! Lord how the bigfoot has changed!
@SQUATCH If I recall I went over the bars on it at Birch Cove in Dartmouth doing a downhill run, bent the fork up 90degrees, bent the handlebar 45degree with my thigh, and cracked the frame. They didnt make them back then like they do now. @bent6543 were you there for that?
I started in my teens. Mom bought me a raliegh that i just destroyed instantly at the old slick rock trails through Portland estates and now portland hills lol
She later upgraded me to a mongoose threshold bought at slick rock and later on to convince me to get braces she bought me a marazocci fork. I was the coolest kid in braces lol. (Thats what she told me anyways)
As i got older and into smoking dope and drinking i quit pretty much everything active i did. Blew up like a blimp lol.
Over the last 3 years ive made some serious lifestyle changes. Fell in love mtbing again. Went from 270lb dude that could barely make it to the mailbox to a guy 195lbs that can bike to Lawrencetown and back (31kms)
Ive never felt so good mentally and physically in my life
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As someone who paid to put two of his kids in braces, it’s my opinion that they should have been giving ME a new fork to make up for it, not the other way around. 
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I think some of my first memories are on bikes. Spent endless hours riding the dirt piles and the undeveloped area behind my parents subdivision (Fairmount). When I was around 12-13 my dad mentioned one of his co workers was bike into riding and offered to take us for a ride. It was one of the original ECMTBers (Rodney Hickey) riding an AMP research bike and I remember it blowing my mind. A few months later I bought my first real bike (KHS from Sports Traders) from lawn cutting money and ended up going to help with the Freeride park at Martock. After that I was hooked. Bikes have been a huge part of my life (other than the the standard, started work, got fat stage). Now have two boys who love their bikes and I will say there is not much better than enjoying your own love through your kids.
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This is pretty fun.
I got my first mountain bike as a kid. I grew up on a farm that’s the last property on a country road before endless acres of crown land - so isolated. One day someone helped themselves to a bunch of canadian tire bikes and rather than sell them they tossed them in the ditch by our house. We turned them in to the RCMP and forgot about them. Eventually the cops called us and said they were never claimed and did I want a bike. It was my everything bike from the time I was about 10 or 11 through high school.
As an adult my story is weirder. Through trail running & under employment I got into canicross (cross country running while being pulled by a dog). That got me turned onto bikejoring (cross country style mtn biking while a dog is pulling you) which got me into just straight up mountain biking.
Thanks to the fact our kids are basically attached to their “mountain bikes” (read: balance bikes) and we’re raising proper trail snobs (they will only ride single track and straight up refuse to ride anything that looks like crusher dust), we finally got my roady of a husband on a proper mountain bike in the last couple of weeks so now its finally a family affair.
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While I did have a bike when I was a kid (red 3spd Raleigh with a rack on the back) I never really rode the thing. None of my buddies had bikes. I started mountain biking in my very early 40s on a Kona Dawg. The guy who got me into riding was in his mid-60s. He is still riding today but out in western Canada. I made the jump to full-fat in 2014 and I ride all year, swapping out bikes based on season and terrain. I can see myself riding for a loooooog while and possibly dipping my toe into the e-bike circus when I hit old age. 
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So I’m a little older than some of you and grew up pre mountain bike era. No inter webs or cable tv. The days were spent outside and a bike was how you got around. The 20 inch banana bike was the weapon of choice in my youth. The Moto dirt bike replica with plastic tank by norco was and still is one of my favourite bikes to this day. At some point I even built a 20 inch mountain bike by removing the brake shims from the rear hub, installing a cable operated rim brake and replacing the banana seat with a road seat. Getto as hell but heading in the right direction.
When I got older and they sold actual mtb bikes a bought entree level bike from sportwheels kickstand included and started exploring.
But I would define when I started as the day I walked in the door of slickrock cycle. I had no idea there was a whole mtb culture with like minded folks, group rides and even races.
I came out for my first group ride after reluctantly buying a helmet and promptly got schooled. There was some surprise when I showed up the next week and I have been at it ever since
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Ha ha, I also contemplated taking gears off of my 10sp and putting on the “dirt bike” I was using on trails. I didn’t know that someone already invented the mountain bike.
Slickrock was a great store. I remember watching a trials comp out in front of it one summer, amazing skills.
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This was a fun thread. Would love to hear more origin stories.
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We always had bikes kicking around as kids, but I never really started riding a lot until the first time I moved out of my folks place after high school. Picked up a possibly-too-orange Trek 4300 that I rode everywhere, which eventually ended up getting stolen in montreal. Spent a lot of time riding fixed gears all through my 20s and usually had some kind of weird big tire road bike build going before gravel bikes were called gravel bikes. Ended up getting a job at McQueen’s bike shop in Charlottetown in early 2010, and quickly made use of the staff deal on a new full suspension Stumpjumper Comp about 2 weeks after testing out Danny’s Stumpy Expert with the short-lived and underwhemling Futureshock fork. Rotated through a couple more Stumpjumpers over the next few years working there as I tried to slowly wrap my brain around fat tires and full suspension after years of sick skids on skinny tires. Spent lots of time cutting my teeth on the roots of Saint Kitz, Strathgartney, Appin Rd and Brookvale before they were anything close to what they are now.
A couple years after moving to Halifax in 2013, I picked up my 2016 RM Instinct MSL and spent a few years not really knowing where to ride around NS aside from the occasional confused wander around Whopper, Fight, Gore or Spider Lake before finding the ECMTB group rides which helped a ton with getting to know more of the trails. We bought a house in Herring Cove at the beginning of last year, so being 2 minutes from the NoraWarren trailhead has been a real treat for quick evening laps, and Hartlen Park isn’t much further away if I wanted to get more time on the granite vs in the trees. Work responsibilities have seriously cut into my group ride times, but a new job hopefully means I’ll be getting back out for more rides in 2024.
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Fun thread.
I started in 1988 or so. I bought a used Trek 7000 from a friend who worked at Martime Sportsword (Billards) at Bayers Road.
I rode that bike in the (I think) Cyclemsith 3rd Annual Mother of a Mountain Bike Race. I think it was at Bowater (Wrandy - any old details of that race?)
From then on it was a whole bunch of riding in NS, ON, and BC (with a short stint in the 2000s where I got into dual sport motorcycles). Here is the history:
1988 Trek 7000
1993 Mongoose Rockadile
1995 Kona Kilauea *
1998 Schwinn Homegrown (Yeti)
2001 Giant TCR
2000 Santa Cruz Bullit
2004 Cove Stiffee
2007 Specialized Demo 7
2009 Specialized Enduro Comp
2012 Giant Defy
2016 Giant TCR 2*
2018 Intense Spider
2021 Santa Cruz Tallboy*
- currently own (or re-owned).
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Only started to ride about 2 years ago in fall 2021 when I learned how to ride a bike but after a few rides I was hooked. I live right around a bunch of unmaintained/unofficial trails so I rode those for a year on my giant 20” until I moved up to a 1994 univega alpina 5.5 with a mag 21. Then I got my hands on a 1998 dean colonel which I upgraded with a full m8000 groupset and an old duke race. After I got that finished I went to last years granite fondo and started going to actual trails. I tried out wentworth and found out that I live about 2km from the old Jimmy’s round top. Here’s a list of all my bikes in order of when I got them:
2012 Giant XTC JR 20
2005 Norco Bigfoot
1994 Univega Alpina 5.5
1998 Dean Colonel
1996 Proflex 856
1990? Kuwahara Rage M6.0
1991 Specialized Stumpjumper
1985 Fat Chance Kicker
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Have been riding a bike as long as I can remember. At 12, in 1985, I got into BMX racing in Ontario. Raced the provincial series for a few years, then started racing the US national series by 1989 and 1990. By 18 I was less interested in devoting my whole summer to BMX and more interested in hanging out with friends. Since I was off to university that year, I traded in my BMX race bike and another frame I had at the bike shop I raced for in return for a 1990 Mongoose Iboc Comp SX. That was a great bike. Rode that to commute to Carleton U for a couple of years before it got stolen. Replaced it with a Pand Industries Grizz (small 1990s Canadian brand - supposedly KHS made their frames). My roommate at the time came with me when I picked it up, and impulse bought a Mongoose. We started heading into the Gatineau Hills as much as we could then, and got our other roomates involved as well. In 1997, the Grizz got stolen and I replaced it with an Oryx Equipe 4000, which I still have. Took that bike with me to grad school at UNB, where I didn’t have much time (or the inclination) to ride it. So it was basically another commuter. In 2007, my wife got a job in Antigonish (this was before the Keppoch revival) and we started hitting a few trails near there. Moved to Halifax in 2010, but still was just commuting on the bike. Then, when the pandemic hit, I wanted something that I could do safely that would get me out of the house, so I decided to try a modern hardtail. I’m also involved in the NS Down syndrome community, and a friend there bought a FS at the same time, so we made plans to get riding. Bought a 2021 Giant Fathom at the height of the supply chain issues (got lucky - phoned Hub Cycle and they happened to have one being built in my size that hadn’t been claimed yet!). Rode that for a year, and then decided my 50+ year old body needed more suspension, so I picked up a 2021 Norco Fluid FS from Savages in Fredericton. Am happy to have gotten back into riding again.
Bikes I’ve owned:
15+ BMX bikes
1990 Mongoose Iboc Comp SX
1994 Pand Industries Grizz
1998 Oryx Equipe 4000 (still own)
2021 Giant Fathom 2
2021 Norco Fluid FS 2 (still own)
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