this was mine. got it around 2001-2002. i guess one should remember his first ride fondly, but that's not really the case here. bike was built by an "ex pro" using a wet noodle of a frame, obsolete components like a threaded headset and steel fork, and despite it costed only around the price of entry level bikes, it was a rip off. one rim would crack after few months, saddle was some 1$ worth item and the Shimano RX100 was... well. working, but having previously owned a mtb on STX this was a noticeable step down. to this date i wish i had gotten a basic Trek 1000 instead. or go for 2000somethig model because i had replaced every single part on that bike, to the point i re-built it and sold it after like two years for 1/4 of the price...
the best thing about it was it existed in the first place - i can still remember the sesation of riding a road bike for the first time. in some way of course having started with a shitty ride made me appreciate good stuff a lot more. but it also meant a lot of unnecessary frustration, especially since i was basically a kid with no clue about bikes and i had to learn from my own mistakes
here she is, probably some months after the purchase, already with a new fork and a-head Ritchey stem...
I only got mine 2 years after the factory went bust and they still had frames left, now at 350 $ instead of 2.000 $
