Muddy Fox succeeded in turning the mountain bike into a hip and fashionable product. The Courier was the best-selling mountain bike in the UK in 1986.

The looks are a lot more modern than its predecessors. The fork is no longer the classic road bike-like model with an angular crown, but a sturdy sausage-like appearance that definitely seems more resistant to the rigors of mountain biking. This construction is what is called unicrown and we will see it in mountain biking for a long time to come. This also applies to the handlebar stem: a construction that is very similar to the handlebar stems on road bikes, but angled upwards instead of straight forward.

The chainstays are much straighter compared to older mountain bikes. The color is a fresh and hip creamy mayonnaise hue…