SONIC SAYS:

If you've been trying to spindash in any game before Sonic CD, then that's NO GOOD.

Even Sonic CD, since that one's spindash(Except in the remake) is just silly. =P But yeah; you definitely need to have a better understanding of how to build up momentum in Sonic 1; which makes things jarring if you go back after having the spindash at your fingertips in the later games, and are especially used to S3&K, where you need the spin dash for a lot of places. =P