Want a Chopper?

[rogerzilla]

https://news.bachmann.co.uk/2022/12/chopper-mk-ii-bicycle-rides-in/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=chopper-mk-ii-bicycle-rides-in

A lot cheaper than restoring a real one, and just as practical to ride if you're adult sized.  Annoyingly, no Fizzy Lemon, which is what colour mine was.

[SoreTween]

Oh that bachmann 

[canny colin]

Were is the death or danger in that . I know a local lad who rides sportives on one . slightly modified with a double clanger up front & a nine or ten speed rear cassette . But why !!! 

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Riding a Chopper with lots of gears in sportives sounds like a laugh, except for the fragile-ego blokes who finished behind him.

[canny colin]

He is as mad as a hatter & he must have balls of steel riding a chopper at high speed .
Coast to Coast via waskerly way on a chopper . Proper comical off roading that .
Although he thinks I am a complete lunatic when I riding my trike .                                                                           
 It is all perspectives I suppose .  Viva la difference

[Mr Larrington]

ISTR reading of some lunatic who rode the Elenith on a modified BMX bike.

[Lightning Phil]

Chopper has quite wide tyres and would work pretty well on forestry tracks

[LittleWheelsandBig]

ISTR reading of some lunatic who rode the Elenith on a modified BMX bike.

That was a couple of decades ago. I rode with him sometimes, when I lived in the Midlands, but I am damned if I can remember his name at the moment.

[JonBuoy]

ISTR reading of some lunatic who rode the Elenith on a modified BMX bike.

That was a couple of decades ago. I rode with him sometimes, when I lived in the Midlands, but I am damned if I can remember his name at the moment.

Martin Staines

[LittleWheelsandBig]

ISTR reading of some lunatic who rode the Elenith on a modified BMX bike.

That was a couple of decades ago. I rode with him sometimes, when I lived in the Midlands, but I am damned if I can remember his name at the moment.

Martin Staines

Somebody has a good memory (but obviously not me). A good bloke to ride with.

[robgul]

There's a bloke over on the CTC  Forum that rode JOGLE on a Chopper, towing a trailer . . .  and a friend of mine rode the Sea-to-Sea/C2C for charity with a group all on Choppers some years ago

[rogerzilla]

There's a bloke over on the CTC  Forum that rode JOGLE on a Chopper, towing a trailer . . .  and a friend of mine rode the Sea-to-Sea/C2C for charity with a group all on Choppers some years ago

This post is worthless without pics.

[robgul]

There's a bloke over on the CTC  Forum that rode JOGLE on a Chopper, towing a trailer . . .  and a friend of mine rode the Sea-to-Sea/C2C for charity with a group all on Choppers some years ago

This post is worthless without pics.

Read all about it . . . .   http://jogleonachopper.blogspot.com/   

[andrewc]

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jan/03/tom-karens-designs-brought-vim-and-vigour-to-1970s-britain


Tom Karen designed the Chopper, the Bond Bug, Reliant Scimitar & other icons.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Karen

[rogerzilla]

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jan/03/tom-karens-designs-brought-vim-and-vigour-to-1970s-britain


Tom Karen designed the Chopper, the Bond Bug, Reliant Scimitar & other icons.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Karen

Ooh, contentious!  I think Alan Oakley has the better claim.

[andrewc]

Ooh indeed !   https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9280638/Alan-Oakley.html


"The launch took place amid some controversy when Tom Karen, a pioneer of crash-test dummies, stepped forward to claim that the inspiration for the Chopper had been his and that his company Ogle, which undertook design work for Raleigh, had created the bike’s prototype. Although Karen is listed as the bike’s inventor by the Design Council, Raleigh has continued to insist that it was Oakley’s invention."


Fight! Fight !

[rogerzilla]

The story is that Oakley sketched the double arrow frame on a flight back from the USA, where he'd been fact-finding.  It's generally accepted that the 60s Schwinn Stingray inspired the Chopper, but the frame design was totally new.

[andrewc]

More stuff here.  https://bikebiz.com/alan-oakley-rip/

[rogerzilla]

More stuff here.  https://bikebiz.com/alan-oakley-rip/

AIUI there is more than a passing resemblance between a Raleigh Twenty frame and a Chopper frame.  I can't remember which is a hack of which.

[Blade]

ISTR reading of some lunatic who rode the Elenith on a modified BMX bike.

I was on that ride, think it was in 1993.

The rider was about 6 foot in height and the bike had a VERY long seatpost and stem riser. He wasn't so much on the bike but above it.

IIRC he finished several hours before I did.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/16476668/october-2011-newsletterpdf-worcesterstjohnscc
Martin notes 1994 in his interview.