Back in 1989 I was channel surfing late one night and came across the movie Quicksilver starring Kevin Bacon as a young hotshot stockbroker who loses everything. After a few obligatory musical sequences, this was the 80's after all, he decides to take a job as a bicycle messenger. At the time I was working as a dishwasher at a restaurant that I hated so I viewed this as a perfect time to change jobs and become a bike messenger.I wanted to be zooming around the streets, inches from cars, looking cool with a red beret.I went down to my local bike store and declared that I wanted a bike just like Kevin Bacon had in the movie. The store owner had never seen the movie Quicksilver and after finding out that I wanted a bike to be a messenger he advised that I should buy a mountain bike instead. I'd never heard of a mountain bike at this time but I had ridden BMX as a kid and so the idea of being able to ride both on road and off road was interesting to me.So I walked out of that store with my very first mountain bike, a 1989 Mongoose IBOC Comp.Mongoose might not be as well known in mountain biking today as they were in the past but back in the late 70's and early 80's they were huge in BMX. I knew of the Mongoose name from my BMX days and was very excited to learn that some of the top mountain bike riders at that time, such as John Tomac were also riding for Mongoose.I rode that bike both for my job as a messenger and around my neighborhood trails for about a year before the bike was stolen. I was pretty bummed when my bike got stolen but I was having a lot of fun learning about this new sport of mountain biking so I went out and bought a Rocky Mountain Stratos. With its beefy looking raw aluminum tubing, knobby tires and Shimano Deore component group I felt like I had upgraded to a proper mountain bike. I immediately started to customize the bike by adding the then brand new Shimano SPD-M737 clipless pedals, Cook Bros Cranks, and of course, a rad set of bar ends.I thoroughly enjoyed this bike and would go riding at any chance I had. There was a small scale cross-country mountain bike race held every year by a local bike shop and I used to ride the 20 km to the race, ride in the race and then ride home. Sadly those days of youthful energy are long gone.Full suspension bikes were starting to hit the market and after running a Manitou One front suspension fork on my Stratos I was curious about the ride of a full suspension unit. Back to the bike store I went and this time I came away with a Rocky Mountain Element equipped with front and rear Deore XT derailleurs, Rock Shox Q21R front fork and Rocky Mountain's new rear shock linkage system. This was an absolutely gorgeous mountain bike with the Violent yellow forks and rear triangle offset by the raw aluminum finish of the frame.Sadly as I got older other priorities started to get in the way and I ended up selling my Element and that was the last bike I owned until 2018 when I moved back to Canada and bought a Marin Attack Trail 8. A lot has changed with the bikes since I last rode. I'm amazed at such innovations as the dropper post, full suspension that works, beefy tires that grip, disc brakes that actually stop, etc. It's been a fun few months as I rediscover how great mountain biking can be.