In April 1969 the first Raleigh Chopper went on sale in the UK, and it went on to become one of the best-selling bikes of all time – and, of course, became a nostalgic icon of 1970’s British culture.
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Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro the house.
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; hopes that St. Nicholas would soon be there, with handlebars glaring from his sleigh afar, and a long-sprung PVC saddle crammed in between Rudolph and Prancer.
How would he do it, get that much awaited Raleigh Chopper down the chimney, as we’d just had a new gas fire fitted? Hah, well, at 8 years old I was already wise to that one, I’d found wrapping paper hidden uptrains in a wardrobe the year before, and so I already knew that Santa was but a myth, and that my Chopper was going to find another way to get here – or at least that was what I’d pinned all my flared dreams and hopes on.
As a gloomy Christmas morning came around Noddy Holder & Slade blared out Merry Christmas Everybody from the kitchen radio as the whiff of minced pies and a slow roasting turkey - and of over boiled sprouts came around.
In that self-same kitchen was the unmistakable outline of a Chopper, all wrapped in crinkled Christmas paper, although with my dad’s cruel sense of humour it could well have been just a prank. With a mile wide grin of anticipation, I tore off the paper, and yes, my wishes had come true – and I could then acknowledge that I hadn’t really believed in Santa for some time.
All purple (officially termed ultraviolet) with bold pink stickers and gear knobs, it was the biz – and my under sized and over used Gresham Flyer was no more; I was one of the local cool cats now.
Anyone of a certain age can probably relate to what it was like to get a Raleigh Chopper for Christmas. It was, in many cases a life changing experience – both for the good and bad, and to this day the mighty Chopper stands out to many as a much prized and highly valued icon of the 1970’s, and rightly so.
The origins
The 1960 glory days of the Friday Night and Saturday Morning film glory were already way behind Raleigh by the second half of the 1960’s, and as more regular people took to motorised transport the humble bicycle was losing appeal – and Raleigh were in serious financial strife.
That’s when the Chopper came to their rescue, and effectively those huge handlebars, the long-sprung saddle and private part crushing gear stick would save their bacon and put Raleigh well and truly back on track, or at least id did for a decade or so.
Searching for a saviour, the top brass in Nottingham had looked west to the USA and had noticed that the Schwinn Sting-Ray, a chopper styled bike, was really taking off, and so they decided to produce a rival model.
Just how the Chopper actually came to be is still a matter of controversy; it was long said that Raleigh’s chief designer, Alan Oakley, went to the US in search of inspiration in 1967, and that on the flight home he sketched out the outline of a bike that would become the Chopper. However, Tom Karen of the OGLE Design Company has since been accredited with creating the Chopper under request from Raleigh in 1968.
However it came around, that mattered not to us devotees of those high-rise bars, and in April 1969 the first Mark 1 Chopper was unleashed into the post psychodelia and evolving glam rock era of the UK.
It went on sale for the princely sum of GB34, which is a tad over GB500 in today’s money, and it was an instant hit with young Brits, and it provided an ideal Christmas morning escape from the eternal replays of Rolf Harris’ Two Little Boys, Benny Hill’s Ernie & Jimmy Osmond’s Long Haired Lover from Liverpool, chants that would blight the festive mornings of the era.
The Chopper experience
The Chopper was vaguely intended as a “wheelie bike,” and by heck did those deadly riser bars ever pull that tiny front wheel off the ground, although given it’s great weight the Chopper was not a bike that a youngster could keep off the ground for long. Despite the countless primitive dirt jumps and planks on bricks that would curse British kerbsides and parks for many a year the Chopper was perhaps more of an easy rider bike in truth, although then again it was also a beast of burden when the road turned uphill.
Even so, my very own Chopper was ridden for countless miles, both on and offroad, and was pushed up the steepest hills in the area, and then hurled down them with a flapping flare that went way behind my trousers.
Back in the 1990’s I did manage to get hold of an old Mark 1 and a Mark 2 Chopper, which were in a state of disrepair, and although I did pedal Mark 2 on occasion (and it did make me grin), sadly they were lost to the evil that is a musty shed rust.
My original version was, after way too many years, forced out of my raised arms and traded in for a “more appropriate” Raleigh Europa racing bike, and I occasionally wonder what would have happened had that not of been the case .
Thank you to Alan, Tom & Raleigh for defining many a childhood - and indeed an era; it’s hard to imagine a bike such as the Chopper being allowed out there today.