www.halfords.com/533.asp
There has been, as part of the ongoing discussion on rustbuckets Fiesta replacement to have space to store his concept bike, various discussions on bikes. But I thought this deserved its own thread just for us all to reminisce (!) and say Aahh!
Mind you, £200????
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Well I have a Raleigh mini-chopper, originally bronze in colour, in the garage dating from 1987. It's on its 3rd coat of paint, 2nd brake cable, original brake blocks, 2nd set of tyres and in 2001 saw my 4th child learn to ride on it.
This is Yorkshire ...
Hawkeye
-----------------------------
Stranger in a strange land
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I'm afraid that for me it was the usual story - ALL my pals had one except me (you know, the same thing as our kids always say to us now).
While they were going about on their Choppers, I had a hand-me-down bike from my brothers! And when everyone had a Grifter, I was only on a Strika, though it was the one that if you back pedalled it locked up the back brakes - great for skidding!!
I was so poor that when I graduated onto bigger bikes and I didn't have any gears, my dad told me that this was because it was an automatic.............. and I believed him :)
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I had one of the last Choppers - a metallic black one. They weren't very good to ride as they very heavy, especially if "cogging" on the long seat.
Trivia - The junior version (the Tomahawk) used the Chopper's front tyre as its rear
Classic design though, especially in purple
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The new chopper has a gearshift on the handlebars now, the old "car style" lever on that double crossbar is too dangerous these days.
Don't agree with that though, clouting your knackers on a short metal lever makes a man of you,
or perhaps not, depending on speed of impact!
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The Grifter was much toughter and a better looking bike, plus it had the handlebar twist gearchange with different colours donating the gear you were in, Red, Yellow and Blue IIRC.
I probably did more miles on that bike than many old codgers do in their cars!
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"Don't agree with that though, clouting your knackers on a short metal lever makes a man of you, or perhaps not, depending on speed of impact"
That made me laugh (not at the time though) and brought the memories flooding back, mine was a West German import, was obviously cheaper than the British one with slight difference in the trim - consequently made it difficult to sell on the used market. And Raleigh may or may not have honoured the warranty of course.
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That made me laugh (not at the time though) and brought the memories flooding back, mine was a West German import, was obviously cheaper than the British one with slight difference in the trim - consequently made it difficult to sell on the used market. And Raleigh may or may not have honoured the warranty of course.
Aaaah, But I had a UK spec one, which was way way better than the local SA-built job (circa 1976) - longer and higher seat, wider handlebars, purple paint (not availbale here!), as well as a much better-looking gearshift!
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"Don't agree with that though, clouting your knackers on a short metal lever makes a man of you, or perhaps not, depending on speed of impact"
I still have the gearlever from mine kicking around in the loft somewhere. Got broken off after one too many knacker bashes.
That bike accounted for my only near death experience as a child. I'd done a few jumps on it which had bent the handlebars forward. I bent them back with a bit of iron bar and the post had split. it didnt occur to me that this might be dangerous until the handlebars let go completely whilst riding on the pavement. The subsequent loss of control threw me into the road and I still have a clear memory of a car tire going six inches from my head as the car swerved out of the way. i've been quite careful about bike maintenance ever since.
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Heh.. I often think that a stray masochist at Raleigh saw the gearshift and decided to add a slippery vinyl seat as an afterthought. I'd also bet that the word 'runway' appears on the plans somewhere nearby ;) Why they made the underside of the seat from compressed cardboard and expected the tiny lugs on the top of the seatpost to stay attached is still beyond me - I don't think I ever rode one where the seat didn't tip up backwards if you shifted your weight.
As it happens, the gearshift started to jam on mine so I replaced it with a Sturmey Archer thumbshift anyway. In hindsight this could be seen as careful planning for the future;)
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Why they made the underside of the seat from compressed cardboard and expected the tiny lugs on the top of the seatpost to stay attached is still beyond me - I don't think I ever rode one where the seat didn't tip up backwards if you shifted your weight.
Apparently the chopper designer went on to a long and illustrious career at British Leyland!
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Was that the Tomahawk, by any chance? Almost identical, but scaled down and with the same fake shock boots fitted to the Boxer? If so, I had one too - it was a constant cause of torn trousers through excessive wheelies ;)
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\"Big\" bike = Chopper
\"Medium\" bike = Tomahawk
\"ickle\" bike = Budgie
Wasn\'t it similar with the Grifter, Boxer and Striker?
Aaaah, Sturmey Archer \"slip\" gear moments, usually reserved for out-of-the-saddle, honking it up a hill. One ooh-so-swift slip when changing down to 2nd and it was \"Hi! Welcome to world of pain! Those were your funbags and you are now a girl\".
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Yeah had a chopper.
I max-powered mine. Playing cards in the spokes, bits of my nan's plastic string door partitions stuffed into the handlebar grips, had the bull horn handlebars re-chromed courtesy of BL, a false aerial with rabbits-tail clamped onto the rear 'roll bar' and plastic strips ran over the saddle and then screwed into the underside of the seats.
It all went a bit Pete Tong after a nasty tailgating incident and too much momentum swerving to avoid a hard braking Grifter with their back pedal brake, driving the Chopper into a short wall.
After learning the hard way all of Newton's laws of motion, momentum and gravity without too many cuts and bruises. We both limped back to my dad's garage were we proceed to bash the brown stuff out of the front forks to get them almost near perfect again.
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Or what about the flagpole at the back? Or instead of playing cards, we used the plastic caps from beer barrels that we used to find at the back of pubs!
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Superb stuff! Never laughed so much since I owned a 2CV with one duff cylinder, but that's another story. Pure nostalgia bringing back mental images of summers spent on Grifters and similar.
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Hear! Hear! I vote, through tears of laughter, that No Dosh\'s post above be voted \"Post of the Month, Feb 04\".
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Hear! Hear! I vote, through tears of laughter, that No Dosh\'s post above be voted \"Post of the Month, Feb 04\".
[Adopts falsetto]
Why thank you, kind Backroomer.
[Takes a bow]
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Don't forget to fill the hub with 3 in 1 oil!
--
groups.msn.com/honestjohn - Pictures say a thousand words.....
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Apparently it is being made in Vietnam as they don't have a factory in Nottingham any more!
Think they are milking the market though - £200 ??
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Apparently it is being made in Vietnam as they don't have a factory in Nottingham any more! Think they are milking the market though - £200 ??
Apparantly they're only making a limited supply, and David Beckam is paying £250 so that he can have number 23 (##) off the production line for Brooklin.
(## His shirt number in Madrid.)
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