Lotus mtb - wow! Like this?
http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=207129
Bhachgen sounds like you were living me at some point. I was in Oswestry.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
Bikes when you were young
(75 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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That's the one Amir. It was a wee cracker.
We were only in Shropshire for a short period. About 1980-83 I think.
Posted 11 years ago # -
1) Some sort of small yellow and blue thing with chunky white tyres, rod brakes and... stabilisers (which came off as soon as I got hold of a spanner when nobody was there to stop me!). A hand-me-down from a school friend.
2) A pseudo-Christmas present from my dad - a Halfords Competitor "racer", like this one
(no rack though). The deal was I had to pay back the cost through deductions from my pocket money. The mudguards came off eventually, followed by me wanting to make it look like a more expensive bike by managing to run the brake cables under the bar tape. And it actually worked pretty well! Still have the wheels in the garage somewhere for some reason.3) Starting to get serious. A white Trek 800 Antelope
(That's an 820 but the same frame), with Shimano Biopace outer chainring. I ran it into the ground until rust eventually started to win the war and it had to go.4) Peugeot 525 Comp
. Lovely bike and I still use it as my turbo mount, with mainly Exage 500EX groupo and Shimano PDA-525 pedals. I fitted a Turbomatic saddle. Amazingly, it still has the same components and chain after thousands of miles, all still within wear limits. Only the tyres, pedals and saddle were ever changed.And that brings me up to my current road, off-road and "all-purpose bikes. So from day one till now, 7 bikes in total. I make 'em last!
Posted 11 years ago # -
Triang trike, blue and white for 1st birthday.
Second hand Triang bike, solid tyres, fixed wheel when I was three.
Purple Puch mini Sprint when I was 8. Single speed sit up and beg. Everybody else had Commandos or Choppers.
Sun version of the Raleigh Arena when I was 11. Didn't use it long as it was heavy and in the garage we had…
1951 Claud Butler Avant Coureur Special. 531 frame, GB brakes, Cyclo BenLux, B17. This one is the reason I still ride a bike. I started using it around '78. I used it almost daily from '80 to '91 in Ayr, Glasgow and London. It's in my dad's loft.
1990 Flying Scot, 531c, Campag CdA. My traveling expenses in London paid for it so, in a kind of a way, the Claud Butler paid for it. It stayed in Ayr and I came up to visit it.
1992 Flying Scot MTB. Columbus CroMor. Campag Centaur.
1995 Longstaff TWD, Campag Chorus. Used it most of the time till I got the Brompton. Now it only comes out in the winter. It's been round the highlands and some of the inner hebrides.
2001 Brompton T3. Didn't have a folding bike and thought I might find one useful.
2006 Brompton S6L. Car broke and I didn't mend it so I got a spare Brompton.
2009 Brompton S2L-X. Obscure object of desire. Yes, it has the Ti seat pin.
2010 Pashley Roadster 26 Sovereign. Fed up replacing Brompton chains in winter.
Raleigh 20 from Common Wheel. My mum gave her shopper away years before and I wanted another one. I might get round to making it more Q bike. At the moment it's very good for leaving at the station as it's an old brown Raleigh.
20013 Brompton M6R. Replacing the T3 which had stopped working.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I had a Dawes five speed racing bicycle in maroon from the bike shop in paisley 1978. It cost me £72 of my own monies and lasted without any real maintenance until stolen from 54 Hillhead st in 1984. If you have it and want to return it, no questions asked,
Before that I had a Raleigh Chico - £25 new which was all my parents could afford, no chopper or grifter for me. However it was a thin tubed speed merchant
We all learned to cycle on a Raleigh 14 with in feasibly wide white tyres. I would not wish to claim ownership though it did its job
Posted 11 years ago # -
Succession of hand me downs spraypainted silver !
First real bike Falcon Eddie Merckx racer at age 14 - magic !
Posted 11 years ago # -
This brings back memories.
First up a Raleigh Boxer then graduated to a Raleigh Grifter. The Grifter was three speed and I must have absolutely trashed it taking it over jumps we made and a DIY BMX track we built.
Then a Raleigh Equipe which was a bit of a change. Went off that a bit after a really nasty fall (the front chainring sliced the bone in my elbow and pedal split my side right open).
Went off bikes for a bit after that, rode a little but left bike at home when I went to Uni and walked a lot of places. Was after Uni before I bought another bike.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Did we know that we lived in the same street? I stayed at 15 Hillhead St from Oct '84 to June '86 in term time.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Yes we knew that, then we had a discussion that I didn't quite realise was in public. Nothing harmful but a social worker I know from Barra said it looked like I was being boastful so I levelled things by telling him some info about his life that I also found on tinternet
I was Hillhead st 1983-1985. Not sure why Morrissey doesn't mention this in his autobiography as I was a big influence on him, oh wait, round the wrong way. I remember walking down the hill to Byres road from Hillhead st listening to punctured bicycle on a hillside. Back on topic, Morrissey was keen cyclist in his youth
Posted 11 years ago # -
A lot of Raleigh's on the list.
Mine was a Team Banana and became my transport during the teenage years.
Coming before that was a red bmx, which combined with a jump made out of a couple of bricks and an old door gave us hours of fun.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"A lot of Raleigh's on the list"
Well 'in those days' was by far the UK's biggest bike brand - and it was (almost) all made in Nottingham.
New history coming soon -
"
@RaleighBikes_UK: Tony Hadland's The Story of the World's Largest Cycle Maker - 1st December"
Posted 11 years ago # -
First bike, age 5 was a Peugeot drop-handled single-speeder with mudguards and a pannier rack. My parents took me around the Massif Centrale in France aged nearly 6. They had gears. I still remember my pain.
I found it a couple of years ago decaying in my aunt's back garden (cousins had inherited it) so I claimed it back and it now lurks under a pile of newer bikes in the garage, against some future bike emergency for a 5 year old.
Posted 11 years ago # -
That's a fine looking bike - though perhaps not ideal for a 5 year old - especially that saddle!
Good thing it didn't put you off cycling!
Posted 11 years ago # -
@chdot: thanks for pointing out that history of Raleigh - that's my dad's Christmas present sorted!
Posted 11 years ago # -
Young: Raleigh to learn on and then onto high-nelly stylee Raleights complete with rod brake linkage:
Youngish: One or two second-hand steel road style 5-speeds, then a new Peugoet:
Not quite Young: A second-hand 1971 Carlton 531 10-speed that I explored the central belt on, still does the spin to the shops, stolen 3 times and recovered 3 times. (Nostalgia ain't what it used to be)
Then back to Raleigh with a 531C.
Took me 25 year to get to Aluminium, so it might be another 25 for Carbon.Posted 11 years ago # -
so it might be another 25 for Carbon
They haven't yet invented what we'll be making bikes out of in 25 years
Posted 11 years ago # -
Strika!
Strika by blackpuddinonnabike, on FlickrGraduated to the inevitable BMX (a 'Highway'), then an Emmelle Cougar 12 MTB - that was a beaut, and I saw one in Edinburgh, chained up, a few months back. If it wasn't for the fact it was a tiny frame I'd have left a note offering to buy it.
Posted 11 years ago # -
First bike I bought was a secondhand Holdsworth Mistral from Dooleys in Paisley. Fantastic bike - started going camping weekends with it (over to Argyllshire mostly) Still love touring!
Posted 11 years ago # -
I had a Gresham Flyer from when I was 5 until I was 13. Why yes I did grow a lot in that time.
Here is what it looked like.
It didn't fly.
The Peugot 10 speed I then got did though - in comparison! It was amazing.
Posted 11 years ago # -
First real bike Falcon Eddie Merckx racer at age 14 - magic !
I had one of those too, my first '10 Speed'. Yellow with blue panels. Weighed a ton, bottom gear 42x28, suicide brakes.
My first proper bike a Major Nichols, 531 with Nervex lugs, Campag Gran Sport, Fiamme sprint rims. The owner was selling up in order to take up golf. How times change !
Posted 11 years ago # -
I think this was my very first bike, inherited off my sister who no doubt got it off another family member as hand-me-down
Posted 11 years ago # -
I think my Dawes came from thomsons in causeyside street in paisley. Diarmid would it have been there 1978?
Posted 11 years ago # -
My first bike was a green and orange 3-speed Puch Calypso. How 1970s. It wasn't very cool, but it got me to St Andrews. Of course I really wanted a Grifter or a Chopper like the other kids.
That was followed by a silver Falcon Black Diamond, that ended up getting resprayed white with fade-in light-blue and the addition of tubs!
I did eventually get a (painted black by brush) Chopper, but that was stored down at my Grandmother's in a small seaside town. I remember getting a few 'looks' from girls on it!
After that was a Raleigh Record Ace, my late teenage pride & joy, which I still own to this day... Other bikes I've owned:
- Muddy Fox Courrier MTB
- Cannondale M500 MTB
- an unknown MTB I used in New Zealand
- an unknown road bike I used in NZ
Posted 11 years ago # -
I had a wonderful Raleigh Black Magic bike that had a sound box on the handle bars and a box on the back that had a picture of a rabbit coming out of a hat (as far as I can remember). I adored that bike so much.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"
Where it all went wrong Raleigh suffered with the rest of the industry in the 1960s when small cars became widely affordable for the first time, turning bikes into reverse status-symbols associated with the poorly paid. As the cycling journalist Roger St Pierre told The Telegraph, "Suddenly, if you rode a bike, you were a pleb."
"Posted 11 years ago # -
It's high time that Raleigh started producing top end steel again, they could really cash in on their Ilkeston heritage. But instead they just seem intent on putting their name on the same identikit carbon that everyone else is peddling.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@charterhall
Google raleigh, get their website, click on classic bikes
1980s team replica £2000,Reynolds 525
Nice tourer £1100 Reynolds 631 with discs, one for £850 without discs Reynolds 520, one for £575 with cromo 4130
Clubman road bike £1000 Reynolds 520
And a road bike for £750 Reynolds 520
They all look good, the dearer ones have brooks saddles, campagnolo groupsets etc, the cheaper ones lower spec.
Obviously Reynolds steel has moved on to 825 and 925 but it also looks like Raleigh are at least aware of their heritage again
Posted 11 years ago # -
"looks like Raleigh are at least aware of their heritage again"
One thing that always surprises me is that they have never revived the Carlton name.
At one time it was Raleigh's racing brand, but I don't think it's been used for about 30 years.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Good link to the Carlton website, now being taken over by another owner? A bit like the cycle company.
If you talk to people from the midlands you were posh if your owned a Carlton
The factories were in different locations from the main Raleigh factories. And the owner previous to Raleigh buying the company in early 1970s Gerald O' Donovan seems to have had some creative ideas tht Raleigh declined to pursue. sand yachts in Reynolds steel, a SIDECAR for a chopper oh yes, there is a picture on chris's link
Gerald o'donovan then went to a special Raleigh division, maybe the team raleigh one? The original telegraph article above has actually covered many of the points.
Also good to see the name Joop Zoetemelk again. Team raleigh's only ever TdF winner. I like a Dutch name Usually from their seventies football team Johnny Neeskins etc but Joop also a favourite, think he might also have competed in superstars. Will now be googling that
Very enjoyable google. Zoetemelk famous for managing ONE dip in the gym tests on superstars, up there with Alan minter's diagonal canoeing, Geoff capes swimming and stan Bowles shooting a table. Unfair as Zoetemelk finished the TdF 12 times and was second six? Times. He was criticised for sitting on the cannibal's wheel too much. Too quiet and turned out he had bad accident in 1974 and an alcoholic wife that have been put forward as theories regards his under-performance. Then linked to Raymond poulidor who apparently fared better than Zoetemelk on superstars but never won the tour. He was always beaten by Anquetil and became known as the eternal second. He is alleged to have visited a terminally ill Anquetil and Jacques said to him something like "looks like you are going to be second again". Anquetil died the next day.
Posted 11 years ago #
Raleigh Play MasterReply »
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