What do people think is the typical mountain bikers look? I'm guessing it's lycra, but you and I know better. In the thirty-ish years since modern mountain biking came to be, the dress code has gone full circle.
Look at old pictures of Charlie Kelly, Joe Breeze et al and what you'll see is protective (kind of) casual clobber- jeans, lumberjack shirts and trainers.
In my early days, the early nineties when mtbing began to boom, things had got a lot more technical. Lycra was a must, comfortable and supportive if a bit weak in the event of a crash. A few years on and we were more demanding. Gone were the trainers teamed with clips and straps of old and in were proper cycling shoes and SPD's. I remember in '92 when a mate got some proper stiff-as-you-like shoes; we thought he was like Jonny Tomac.
By the end of the century the influence of downhill and trials had been well established and baggy but high-tech was the way. The archetypel garment has to be the Fox DH pant- tough, armoured and sensible but also roomy enough to be cool (in the Fonzie sense).
Along the way fashion has come and gone and just as the rest of the world, mountain bike clothing has moved with the times. Rather than let such legendary items as the Goretex helemt cover and the Ron Hill Trackster slip into mtb obscurity, MiTB presents our Wardrobe of Fame "where mtb fashion icons come to hang"...