It’s the middle of the 1970s, and you’re looking at the most fabulous vehicle you’ve ever seen in your entire life. Chrome trim contrasts the bright metal-flake paint on this product of the design geniuses at Ogle, the firm that also made such masterpieces as the Reliant Scimitar and the SX1000. A “floor” mounted three-speed gear selecter with a cool indicator window gauge transfers power to the back, where the rear rubber is bigger than the front.
You’d do anything for a machine like this, and you’re hoping that you’ve been good enough that Santa will bring you one this Christmas.
What? Oh, did I forget to mention that we’re talking about a bicycle and that you’re in elementary school? Well, if you’re a GenXer, the name “Raleigh Chopper” will mean something to you. If not, let me explain.
Rebel Machine For Suburbia
It’s hard to imagine this type of product ever existing today, but the Raleigh Chopper was a “Muscle Bike” or “Wheelie Bike”, a genre of bicycles that were kid’s toys inspired indirectly by the motorcycle culture Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper celebrated with outlaw drug-filled biker films like The Wild Angels and Easy Rider. We’re talking about movies with Fonda diatribes like:
“We wanna be free! We wanna be free to do what we wanna do. We wanna be free to ride! We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man. And we wanna get loaded. And we wanna have a good time. And that’s what we’re gonna do. We are gonna have a good time. We are gonna have a party.”
Honestly, anything that involves Dennis Hopper doesn’t sound much like something to influence children’s playthings, but then I never thought Vampire films like The Hunger would ever transmogrify into tween drivel like the “Twilight” series.
The Raleigh Chopper actually wasn’t the first wheelie bike. The Schwinn Sting Ray debuted in 1963 as a response to a California trend of fitting motorcycle-style accouterments to bicycles such as long “banana” seats, tall “ape hanger” handlebars, and small diameter wheels (often with the rear a larger size).
Parents were apparently hesitant to buy such odd machines for their kids, but eventually, they appeared all over the neighborhood streets. By the later ’60s, the “muscle bike” style accounted for up to seventy-five percent of all bicycle sales, with competitors from most major bike brands (and rebranded ones sold in department stores such as Sears and JCPenney’s when they were still a thing). Outlandish interpretations existed such as Murray’s Fire Cat..
..or the Huffy Slingshot with a Hurst branded shifter like on your dad’s 442 might have had.
Still, there was something just right about the British Raleigh Chopper that came late to the party in 1969, and it was always my favorite.
Ogle’s Tom Karen (or Alan Oakley, if believe his side of the story) got the proportions and angular styling perfect in what appears to be a bicycle equivalent of Ogle’s funky Bond Bug car design.
My favorite feature of the Chopper was the gear selector that made it seem like this bicycle was actually a car, which is what we as elementary schoolers really wanted anyway. Note the gear indicator window behind the giant shift knob (there were also 5-speed models as well as those with tandem gear selectors for models with gearsets in the back and on the crank). Look at that console!! As a ten-year-old I would have tricked out that metallic surface with one of those stick-on LCD clocks, a thermometer, and maybe a compass for full instrumentation. Ain’t nobody be bad like me.
The Chopper saved the Raleigh firm and was a massive success in the UK and across the pond. However, by the time I lusted after these things, the death of wheelie bikes was already imminent. BMX-style bicycles were coming into favor with buyers, and consumer safety groups were more than happy to see Choppers go away. With their tall center of gravity, these bikes were inherently unstable, hard to ride long distances, and the banana seats encouraged passengers to ride. The crossbar-mounted gear levers were, well, not good for young private parts in an accident, especially when the knob inevitably came off of the selector and turned it into a dagger (these were actually banned on new Choppers sold after 1974 in the US). Schwinn ceased producing wheelie bikes after 1982, while Raleigh held for another two years before throwing in the towel.
Today, most bicycles are highly functional machines that are a far cry from these heavy, silly toys of the ’60s and ’70s. Kid’s bikes are usually just scaled-down versions of dad’s Trek, which makes perfect sense, but I’d like to think that children of today might still want a bike that, like the Chopper, is a bit outrageous and aspires to be more than a bike. Our kids liked watching shows such as reruns of the one where father and son screamed at each other built often mind-boggling motorcycle creations. Is there a modern equivalent of these new-school Choppers?
We could actually make it rather easily. We’d take a standard bike like this little girl has and switch to smaller wheels (say 20 inchers on a bike typically made for 24s), allowing for a lower frame but keeping the length from getting ridiculous. Those wheels would not be standard spoked wheels but some kind of cast or molded form (similar to what BMX bikes have done).
For inspiration, I was looking at two things. One was a bright green “Lambo” chopper that ill-fated family from New York created some time ago. The other was a toy from GenXers’ youth called the Green Machine that featured stick-controlled steering, allowing for incredible slides and drifts. I never realized how much the wheels were inspired by Saab soccer balls.
The seat sits low, the pedals move forward so it almost becomes a recumbent bicycle. Lurid colors and graphics would have to be part of the package.
To give a real “chopper” look we can cover the frame with lightweight and durable blow molded body halves (the same production process used for Big Wheels). The blow-molded “body” would have a void space in between but we could utilize that space; note the fake “valve cover” would be a drawer for secret storage.
Reflective graphics could be complemented by add-on LEDs powered by rechargeable battery packs to illuminate the center or even throw “neon” wash light on the ground. Naturally, for the ‘bigger kids’ versions there would be gears, in this case selected by “console-mounted” shifters just like the original Chopper but in this case flush, so if you crash down on the crossbar the pain won’t be enough to make you plan a mass murder, as Morrisey sang.
Recently, certain firms have revived the old-school wheelie bikes, but somehow I’d rather children make memories on a newer style cycle. Another thing that’s nice about the “new” Chopper would be that the center of gravity is painfully low, so if anything it’s safer than even a standard bike. Old or new, I’m glad to see the comeback. The Muscle Bike era was half a century ago, but I think that kids today STILL want to ride their machines without being hassled by The Man. Or Mom. I mean, they did our homework already, right?
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There was a Canadian counterpart to these chopper bikes, the CCM Mustang.
It had several generations, starting in the 60s I believe.
I currently have the last iteration, which came out around 2000.
I was a big fan of the lowrider bikes in the 90s, which were always based around a Schwinn Crate style frame.
This late Mustang has that iconic frame design, so I decided to reignite my teenage dream, as I had this broken bike laying around and my kid was getting old enough to ride.
I polished the wheels, added new whitewalls, pedals etc, and switched the damaged front fork with a bent springer that I shipped from California.
It has a rear hub mounted 3 speed with a Shimano grip shift, which I would love to change to a suicide shift. (Offset to one side of course for safety.)
Finally, I found I was geared too high to ride beside a young child, so I swapped the 50 tooth sprocket for a 32.
It is comfortable but difficult to ride. With more than a foot of stretch the steering feels a bit wonky and the bike is certainly top speed limited due to stability. It cannot be ridden with one hand. Over rough terrain the pedals will hit ground and you have to be aware of pedal position on curves.
This spring I bought a nice modern bike. I decided to take the Mustang out for a final run before it enters storage.
After that ride, I took the new bike back to the store.
My chopper is just too much fun, and so many people in my neighborhood appreciate it.
We had a Schwinn Apple Krate growing up. For the longest time, my mom tried to get rid of it. I ended up fixing it up and hiding it in the attic so we could figure out what to do with it (probably proper restoration and sell). Well, my mother had someone clean out the attic and gave everything that was up there to the people that cleaned it. There were comics and the bike up there. I’m glad I grabbed my stuff when I moved out. But yeah, that woman has thrown or given away tons of stuff that was very valuable. At least it’s not as bad as me marking an HD CRT to keep and my siblings throwing it out when I told them not to. :/
Actually rode every one of the bikes here back in the day. Liked the Schwinns the best. Because we would treat bikes like rented mules, and beat the crap out of them. Think a gang of 20 kids and a Mad Max mentality in the late 1960s. Born to be Wild wasn’t just a song, it was a way of life in my hood.
The weight of the Schwinns was both a hindrance, and a blessing. These were damn near indestructible. The rest were pretty easy to kill though.
We also took 10 speeds and chopped them with 20 inch front tires. We would chop our front forks, the longer the better. The cops would actually hassle us because the bikes were so crazy looking. Chopper handle bars and fat ass rear tires on a widened rear end.
The longer the front fork was, the easier it was to ride a wheelie. So eventually we began to have “wheelie wars” which was like the knights of old on horses except you’d use your front wheel to knock the other kid off his bike which was great fun.
Shit. Now I really miss those days.
Thanks for the memories.
I’m in the Windy City and I know that “Chicago Schwinns” (built right here in town before they went to China) are considered to be top quality bikes.
I once had a Schwinn Traveller. It was a high quality bike with a steel frame, and racked up thousands of problem-free miles, until it got stolen.
It was recovered from the thief, but the thief had ruined its stock paint and decals by sloppily spraypainting black over it and any exposed cables.
It was stolen a second time and never recovered. The last I saw of it, an old lady was riding it. I already replaced the bike, it was unlikely that she was the 2nd thief, and thus I was not about to knock her off and take it. So she kept on riding…
“As a ten-year-old I would have tricked out that metallic surface with one of those stick-on LCD clocks, a thermometer, and maybe a compass for full instrumentation”
You really need to check out the Raleigh Vektar
HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS!!! Yes, that is the coolest bike I’ve ever seen. Thank you so much!!