A new limited edition Raleigh Chopper is designed to pay homage to a golden era of motorsport.
Featuring a small 16in front wheel, a 20in back wheel and ape hanger bars, the new Chopper takes basic components of the iconic British-designed bike and brings in some modern features like a denim two-piece saddle rather than the original super-long saddle design, a lightweight aluminium frame and Shimano 6-speed chainset. Oh, and the new Chopper doesn’t have the gearstick shifter of years gone by.
The 2015 Chopper follows the Mk 1 and Mk 2 Choppers of the 1970s, and several re-issues in the 2000s, including last year's limited edition Beano special.
This version is gloss black with gold graphics that are designed to evoke memories of Formula 1 motor racing.
“Big side burns, champagne-soaked podiums, BBC Grandstand, Murray Walker, burning rubber and big engines; these bad boys are set to tear up and down high streets this autumn,” say Raleigh. And we salute them for saying that.
The 2015 Chopper is set to retail for £250 and can be ordered via any Raleigh stockist. www.raleigh.co.uk.
37 thoughts on “New Raleigh Chopper inspired by golden era of motorsport”
No gear stick … the outrage
No gear stick … the outrage … 🙂
I was a grifter man myself !!!!
It’s not a chopper it’s a
It’s not a chopper it’s a pale imitation of the memory of a Chopper. They are cashing in on an iconic image and doing it very badly. Shame.
Liking the Lotus-themed
Liking the Lotus-themed paintjob, but £250 for a retro toy is a bit steep.
Besides, I was the generation that had the Raleigh Burner BMX. If they remade that then it might be a different matter…
parksey wrote:Liking the
like this:
http://www.evanscycles.com/products/raleigh/mag-burner-replica-2011-bmx-ec024275
still want one? They weren’t really that great. I had one but always lusted after a PK Ripper or a Kuwahara.
I remember a mate slamming on
I remember a mate slamming on the anchors and going THROUGH the handlebars. Oh how we laughed.
truffy wrote:I remember a
Argh, just remembered why we (and by “we” I mean the spectators, not my mate) laughed. As he lay on the ground in front of the bike, it didn’t stop, travelled halfway up his back, then fell over. THEN we laughed.
Innocent times.
Maybe a new generation will
Maybe a new generation will take to it but to me that looks like poorly executed, John Player Special inspired, really rather lame pastiche of a MK II Chopper. It’s a bitsa, a cobbled together selection from the parts bin that insults the memory of my 14th birthday.
But then really even the MK II was shite in reality.
Ooh nice, it looks like a fag
Ooh nice, it looks like a fag packet.
Anyway, I agree with the above. No gear stick, no Sturmey Archer hub gears and the saddle is a disgrace.
It’s the bike equivalent of the Phantom Menace.
the Chopper got me into
the Chopper got me into cycling. Not because I had one but because I didn’t. I envied one. We all had bikes in those days only my parents were very much StartRite and Clarks people. I had a sensible traditional bike. Not for long though. I did a paper round and started saving and bought some cow horn bars. It still wasn’t a chopper though but it did get me in with a group of lads that liked Speedway and liked cycle speedway which they did on makeshift tracks. I was pretty good at that and that started me being interested in cycle racing more generally. Then one Saturday afternoon in the winter of 1972 World of Sport showed some track racing. It must have been a Six day thing. That blew my mind. That was what I wanted to do. I was 11 years old. I had no clue how to do it though. Then in spring of 1973 in Winton (Bournemouth) I saw a track. Well banks anyway. It was tarmac not an oval but more like a three cornered affair around a cricket pitch, but it was track and I rode it to death. On my own mostly but sometimes with mates that I dragged ver there. Then one Friday night in early summer the Bournemouth Arrow Cycling Club turned up at my track. (it was their track actually) I watched with my gob open getting closer and closer to the bikes and the people. I’d probably been there an hour and was by now standing close to the start/finish line. Someone was watching because I was asked if I wanted a go and before I knew it I was on an old club track bike going round on my own (I expect no-one trusted me not to bring them down.) That following Sunday I was on a club run on my sensible one speed bike with cowhorn bars. In the following weeks I rode the track bike with a front brake on and by the end of the summer I’d sold the sensible bike and got a 2nd hand road bike. I’ve been riding ever since.
I still never owned a Chopper though.
Update: Blimey. There’s a web page with the history of that track.
http://www.bournemouth.cc/about-the-bournemouth-cycling-centre/51-history-of-bournemouth-cycling-centre.html
Agreed. The literally
Agreed. The literally half-arsed saddle is a disgrace. The one with the white belt across was an iconic part of the original. It’s akin to remaking the classic E-Type Jag and thinking ‘Let’s not bother remaking the spoked wheels.’ Lazy and counter productive.
I was a Strika man, well boy.
I was a Strika man, well boy. Broke my arm when I was 4 falling off that thing. :”(
Fail.
Sorry, but I thought
Fail.
Sorry, but I thought the love for the original chopper was because it was a chopper. The seat, the gear stick etc, etc. Why go to all the trouble to do your own version? It’s not for doing a sportive on, it’s for messing around on your estate. No gear stick? Get out-a-here man.
Strange.
ronin wrote:Fail.
Sorry, but
Some of the very first Choppers didn’t have a gear stick as they had no gears. 3 speed and 5 speed were “optional extras”.
oozaveared wrote:ronin
Some of the very first Choppers didn’t have a gear stick as they had no gears. 3 speed and 5 speed were “optional extras”.— ronin
Next you’re gonna be telling me that I don’t need flares to ride one and afro’s are optional 😉
One fact you don’t know is, gear sticks are way faster than standard shifters – and that’s the same for 3 or 5 speed.
That is not a Chopper!
It’s
That is not a Chopper!
It’s nothing like a Chopper. Either make a proper Raleigh Chopper or don’t, but for crying out loud stop chucking the Chopper name at any bit of dross you want to make money out of ~X(
Binky wrote:That is not a
Well to be fair it’s a bit like the mini. No it’s not a real Mini because they stopped making the real ones when people stopped buying them. Like the Chopper really.
Let’s call it a “Chopper(ish) shaped” item of memorabilia.
And does anyone remember the
And does anyone remember the smaller version, the Chipper?
truffy wrote:And does anyone
I had a purple one and my cousin had a red MK1 Chopper. The lasting memory of my Chipper is riding through the old shopping precinct in Bath, where Southgate now is, and attempting a wheelie and ending up flat on my back having flipped the bike which caused my merriment for my cousin and no sympathy from my father who just told me to get up off the floor.
No Sturmey Archer, no sale.
No Sturmey Archer, no sale.
Aww…not the same if it’s
Aww…not the same if it’s not like the Mk2…. It’s gotta have a one piece loooong seat and stick shift sturmey!
Missed opportunity!
For the record, British
For the record, British Standards told Raleigh they couldn’t produce the new Chopper in the original design for health and safety reasons. Raleigh did look into this before producing the new design. Obviously Raleigh loves the original design as much as everyone else – why would they change a classic unless they had to.
Remember my bro breaking his
Remember my bro breaking his Mk1 Chopper and the local agricultural engineer welding the frame back together. They don’t build em like that these days……
Back in the day, my mum
Back in the day, my mum bought me the Mk 1 in scarlet / orange. Seem to remember that she paid approx £30 for it which was roughly twice the going rate for a kids’ bike back then.
It was a 30lb beast but it inspired a love of bikes in me which has lasted to this day. I’m now 53 and have never even had a driving lesson.
The product range was
The product range was Chipper, Tomahawk then Chopper… there was also the Chopper Sprint with drop handlebars!
British Standards told them
British Standards told them not to use Sturmey Archer? I don’t believe it. Even if they could not have the castrating gear lever, the hub gears should have stayed.
we don’t want this Raleigh,
we don’t want this Raleigh, we want how it was, like the Mk 2 in the picture, brilliant bikes, I had exactly that bike, in the purple, fab. Stop faffing around with the seat, and the gear stick, and have it as it was ….
I had an original decided to
I had an original decided to take a mate on the back down a long fast hill in town, we all know the end of course crashed and burned. I actually passed out having picked myself off the ground, blood pouring from both elbows no skin now, and the same on tops of my pelvis (front).
A trip to the hospital where they cleaned the debris out more agony and daily trips back for the dressings to be ripped off, ah memories, the good old days :&
I still loved it though it was the first bike I had ever owned that was new, closing my eyes I can still see it.
They should just leave it, I
They should just leave it, I know they can’t replicate the gear stick and banana saddle because if the standards, so it’s never going to be the same.
Still a three speed thumb shift and a better saddle would help, the original was actually made by Brooks.
‘This vehicle is not designed to carry passengers’
They were awful. Difficult to
They were awful. Difficult to ride out of the saddle up hills, terminally unstable going down, rubbish handling and braking and heavier than a heavy thing.
One of those “retro” items we should just quietly forget about.
Bigfoz wrote:They were awful.
I believe that the trick is to stay in the seat when going up hill…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNaqRgGOuQQ
They were truly awful, but
They were truly awful, but that made an excellent training aid for future bike handling.
I managed to shear the handlebars off at the stem….going round a roundabout! My dad’s welding repair and subsequent matt black painting of the bars lasted about 3 days.
That’s one ultra violet mark 2 that ended up in the skip!
And 2nd gear always slipped into neutral.
All this evokes for me are
All this evokes for me are memories of the ‘rich kid’ in my street who of course was the only child to have a chopper bike.
Though in retrospect he was only ‘rich’ in the sense that ‘posh spice’ is posh. C2, C1 at best! I think his dad was actually a bus driver, but dammit his family were ‘aspirational’, he always had far more expensive stuff than the rest of us.
And thanks to him, this style of bike is now forever linked in my mind to casual racism. I concede this association might not be objectively justifiable.
It retrospectively cheers me greatly to read about how bad they were to actually ride!
What could British Standard (
What could British Standard ( was a pair of initials ever so apt..?) have against the original one piece curved saddle?
Is it an attempt to stop ‘backies’ perhaps?
I had the sensible pale blue Raleigh 5 speed racer but my mate owned one and they were truly dreadful to steer. How a split saddle will improve steering I can’t imagine.
MercuryOne wrote:What could
I believe it is, yes.
I’m sure they could sell one as a piece or art or an ornament and sign the risk over to the user to pledge not to ride it.
Good ole H&S. I wonder if
Good ole H&S. I wonder if anyone can dig up an actual [i]documented[/i] case of .. er .. Chopper castration?
I think they castrate the
I think they castrate the bollocks rather than the chopper…
My mate David Neal had one of
My mate David Neal had one of these and my mum banned me from riding it, because they were so dangerous. Of course I ignored her and had a spin down his long downhill drive on it, which ended with me having only about 20% of my skin left intact. I had to tell her I fell off MY bike, and I can remember my old man look from my perfectly intact bike to me and back, with a quizzical look on his face, but fair play, he kept his mouth shut.