Did you ride one of these?
THE RALEIGH CHOPPER WAS A CLASSIC 70S BIKE
AGREAT picture from the Chronicle archive – it’s August 1975 and a lad is on his bike, checking out graffiti on a Tyne and Wear road bridge.
The bike of course was a Chopper – a must-have for 70s kids. Its arrival breathed life into an ailing cycling market.
The bicycle, as we would recognise it today, emerged in the late 19th century when Raleigh of Nottingham became the leading player.
The years between 1900 and 1950 became a golden age for cycling.
Before the car, the bike was the main mode of transport for men and women, young and old.
Many would use a bike to get to and from work, there was a new vogue for fresh air and exercise, cycling clubs sprung up, and a new bicycle became the favourite Christmas or birthday present.
However, the early 1960s saw bike sales slump as more cars appeared on the roads, and town planning and new road schemes were designed in response to the increase in road traffic.
The answer would be a smallwheeled bike designed for city living.
Launched in America in October 1968, the Chopper initially failed to take off.
But undeterred, Raleigh released 500 bikes to dealers in Newcastle, Croydon and Manchester in the run-up to Christmas 1969 and they became an instant hit.
With its revolutionary good looks and choice of six vivid colours, the Chopper became the defining bike the times.
Designer Alan Oakley based the look on Peter Fonda’s motorbike in the classic 1969 movie Easy Rider. A mark II Chopper arrived in 1972.
Within a decade Raleigh had sold 1.5m models – even though it represented a major outlay for 70s parents with a £32 price tag, roughly equivalent to £415 today.
The high handle bars, the gear lever and the motorbike-style saddle were all tremendously exciting for the youngsters of the 1970s – even if the bike wasn’t great taking corners!
According to Raleigh, the Chopper “changed the way a generation of British kids rode”.
But the Chopper’s significance went beyond it being a “cool” bike for kids – it came to represent a time when childhood changed “dramatically”, according to TV historian Dominic Sandbrook.
“The 1970s were much more comfortable, much more affluent, children had far more toys – they were surrounded by stuff in a way that they hadn’t been 20 or 30 years earlier,” he says.
In the early 1980s, production of the Chopper ceased as BMX bikes became the fashionable choice for youngsters, although a limited mark III edition was unveiled in 2004.
The Chopper may be gone – but it’s not forgotten.