It’s Thursday … and that means it’s time for another nostalgic look back at times gone by. Those golden days when bars were narrow and trousers were baggy!
This week we’re pointing the time machine at 2001 and Team Animal Orange – a collaboration between Orange Bikes and Animal Clothing. The story is told by Mountain Bike Britain, a TV showed that appeared on channel 4 and did a great job of showing off mountain biking at the time – with lots of coverage for the RAV4 National Mountain Bike Series. This was (of course) way before Red Bull TV, the internet, Youtube or live coverage.
Not heard of Animal Orange? Heard of Greg Minnaar? Yep, he was in the mix back them as a young gun. He was joined by Tim Ponting (who is still racing today), Steve Geall, Rob Kitchin, Joe Leigh … and many others along the way, including Adele Croxon (who is now Mrs Steve Peat).
Not only was the team home to some absolute legends in mountain biking, but it was also pretty big time even by today’s standards. The team raced internationally, prototyped downhill bikes for Orange (remember the Mr O?) and had a really professional set up at the races.
It’s interesting to also see how strong mountain biking was back then – Toyota sponsored the National Series, Mountain Bike Britain was on proper, actual TV and the sport felt (at the time at least) like it was booming.
