Picture this... Christmas Eve on a council estate circa 1977. Boys and girls going to bed dreaming that Santa will bring them a brand new Raleigh Chopper. Only Santa is a bit cheap around at your house and doesn’t bring the finest geometrically challenged bike to come out of Nottingham. Instead he speaks with your Dad who’s got a mate down the pub who’s got a mate who works on the market and can get ‘something just as good for about 20 quid less’. So Christmas Day comes along and so enters the Hi-Riser Cadillac.
Sensing some apprehension and disappointment, your parents try to reassure you that what they’ve bought you is even better than a Chopper.
“Son, the thing with this is everyone’s got a Chopper, but you’ve got something really special and different. I bet no-one else will have a Cadillac bike.”
Too right they won’t and thanks for putting my mind at rest, I feel so much more confident and I’m absolutely certain now that I’m not going to get the piss ripped out of me and probably a good kick in too the first time I venture out on it.
I really don’t know anything about where this originated, possibly Hell. I bought it a couple of years ago from the Raleigh Chopper and custom bike event at Billing Aquadrome. It’s even too obscure for the rest of web as there’s no info’ out there about it. This is my latest ‘park bike’ but I guess I will only be using it early mornings and late at night when the Raleigh Chopper boys are in bed!
By the way, that’s not my bike story, mine is even more pitiful and completely true. I got a 3rd hand blue MkI Raleigh Chopper with one brake, a bald tyre, no gear knob, a split seat and wobbly bent mudguards. I took it to school to do my cycling proficiency test and they sent me home and told me not to come back until I had a roadworthy bike. That’s the scar I carry and that’s why I hoard carrier bags and pieces of cheese.
I really don’t know anything about where this originated, possibly Hell. I bought it a couple of years ago from the Raleigh Chopper and custom bike event at Billing Aquadrome. It’s even too obscure for the rest of web as there’s no info’ out there about it. This is my latest ‘park bike’ but I guess I will only be using it early mornings and late at night when the Raleigh Chopper boys are in bed!
By the way, that’s not my bike story, mine is even more pitiful and completely true. I got a 3rd hand blue MkI Raleigh Chopper with one brake, a bald tyre, no gear knob, a split seat and wobbly bent mudguards. I took it to school to do my cycling proficiency test and they sent me home and told me not to come back until I had a roadworthy bike. That’s the scar I carry and that’s why I hoard carrier bags and pieces of cheese.
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