Could you do better than this on a Chopper?

[Mick F]

Well spotted Brucey.

He says it was ratified by the Chopper Club AND it was a 1969 Mk1 Chopper and totally original.

No it wasn't!
Wrong gear shifter, no backrest springs ............ just for starters.
........ and where's the lamp bracket?

[blackbike]

Well done to these long distance chopper riders.

When we all rode around on our bikes playing out as kids there was one boy who had a Chopper. He used to borrow his sister's normal bike so he could keep up with the rest of us.

Even the taunts about being on a girl's bike were preferable to being left behind all the time.

[pete75]

Sales were allegedly inspired by this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S33abzXQfkc

[robike]

In the summer of 2002 I went end to end on a 1977 Raleigh Chopper to celebrate its 25th birthday. It was an unmodified Mk2 three speed though it does have Mk1 style handlebars that can be angled (the bar stem was the first thing to fail - I got a replacement from a scrapyard). It also has self-tightening brake levers. I bought it in France from a Cash Converters near Bordeaux in 2000 for 200F (about £20). I wonder if Raleigh were dumping all their obsolete components on to their overseas bikes. It was completely original and in great shape but the ride took its toll. The 4 spot welds on the plate below the saddle that secure the crossbars came adrift. A helpful biker in the North East fashioned me an extended saddle clamp that encompasses the crossbars to tie it all together. One of the spot welds that tack the crossbars to the head tube also failed and it remains detached to this day. In Scotland the perished rear tyre gave out on the sidewall. I patched it with some webbing before buying a BMX tyre at a shop in Perth. The penultimate day I cycled for 13 hours and covered about 135 miles. The last day was a ton plus too. On the run in to John O'Groats the left side of the bars gave way (the failing bar clamp had weakened the metal). After the ride I went to Orkney were I got the bars welded for a fiver. Here the left pedal snapped and I had to pay over £8 for a horrid pair of resin pedals to use the bike. It had to be spaced with a washer because the threaded section was longer and stuck out the back of the crank and caught the chain stay. The trip took it's toll on me too. I'm 6' and sat perched on the top of the saddleback up against the sissy bar. This was fine in motion but after 7 days I arrived in York where I took a three day break as their was a family reunion going on. During this time my back went in to excruciating spasm. It was crippling and I thought I would have to abandon but it was sufficiently eased to recommence after the reunion and recovered completely once I got pedalling again. When I arrived in JOG my back was once again troublesome on stopping but not as badly so. I reckon I covered over 1000 miles (I went via Lindisfarne as I'd always wanted to see it). I travelled light with just a small holdall bungeed to the little rack at the rear, staying in B&Bs, hostels and one night sleeping rough in an abandoned quarry building. On the way home I cycled to Wick into a savage headwind, took the train to Inverness, pedalled to Aberdeen before flying Easyjet to Luton where I got a lift home to Cambridge. I still have the bike. I'd attached a sign to the sissy bay saying LEJOG and collected an unsolicited £12.75 that I forwarded to Sustrans. In 2027 I'd like to do it again with the bike being 50 years old but I'll be 62 (and the Queen will have reigned for 75 years - or more likely not).

[Mick F]

Excellent!
You trumped me there, and before I'd done it in 2010.

Mine was a completely and totally original 1971 Mk1 Chopper in orange. The handlebars and stem were a one-piece unit - no clamp.

[Mick F]

PS:
Just reading through this thread again about the hour record on a Chopper, and how it was completely original and unmodified and ratified too as well as being a Mk1 ................ load of tosh.

[Cyril Haearn]

Maybe it was just maintained, or upgraded
Where is your Chopper now Mick?

[Mick F]

The cranks and chainring were wrong.
Seat way too high, and beyond what the seat post could manage.
No springs, so the rear bars must have been lengthened and fixed in place.
It was supposed to be a Mk1, but the rear seatstays were wrong where they meet the chainstays at the dropouts - it was a Mk2 at least.
Also, the gear selector was at least a Mk2 version.

If I can see those things from just a few photographs, the people who "ratified" it as a totally original Mk1 mustn't have known what they were looking at.



After my JOGLE, I sold the Chopper. I put it back to original and got £200 for it.
The money went to Gunnislake School like the rest of the sponsorship monies.

TBH, I'm sad that I sold it. I'd have given £200 to the school and kept it. No matter, it's all water under the bridge now. (sigh)

[Cyril Haearn]

Sorry, I think I meant the RSW, were you planning to ride that to Llandrindod Wells?

[Mick F]

Oh, that's another subject!
It's still in the shed.

I used to ride to the pub in the village, and I rode a 20mile route round Bedfordshire a few years ago.

It's still in one piece, and the tyres are still inflated - not touched for five years.

[Brucey]

https://oldbike.wordpress.com/1975-raleigh-chopper-mk2/

shows an unmolested MkII. The write-up also explains an anomaly; I thought all MkIs had clamp-type handlebar stems, but the write-up suggests that it isn't as simple as that; early MkIIs often had some MkI parts and the final MkIs (mid to late 1971) had one-piece handlebars like Mick's. I had an earlier MkI when I was a kid; the bike was heavy and slow and I was small too. If I scaled the arrangement to an adult size, the bike would weigh about 100lbs... . I got quite a good workout every time I rode my chopper. I think the furthest I rode it in a day was about 30 miles, which included a climb from near sea level up to about 1000'.

This link is interesting too:

https://raleighchopper601557023.wordpress.com/

it seems incredible to me that the matter of who designed the thing is a controversial point; after all it isn't that long ago, is it?

cheers

[Cunobelin]

For those of a "certain age"...

remember the "competition between Graeme Obree and Chris Boardman, the rules were being changed on an hourly basis. There was one particular day when OBree's bike was legal in the morning, but illegal in the afternoon.


I am not sure whether a Chopper conforms with UCI regulations

[robike]

Here is a picture of my 1977 Chopper that I LEJOGed on in 2002.

[gxaustin]

Am I the only one who thinks the Chopper was horrible?

Fair play to anyone who uses it for something improbable but its still horrible to me.

[Greystoke]

When I was a kid my mate had a 5 speed Raleigh Chopper Sprint with drop handlebars.
That was really cool