i once owned the best bike in the world

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up hill struggle

Well-Known Member
i to once had a Raleigh race bike, it was the best bike in the world ever, fact.

By todays standards it may not have been all that great a bike no carbon & it was heavy but to me it was fantastic.

it belonged to my uncle who bought it for riding to work but after the novelty wore off it was never used. Last time he used it he cleaned it after & it was stored in his bedroom there it caught my eye & where i used to climb onto it & pretend it was racing it making motorbike noises & shouting at other racers to get out of my way cause i was gonna win this race, lol.

as i got taller i remember him adjusting the seat height so i was able to reach the pedals initially & as time went by & i grew up i was able to reach the floor.

then one week i was asked to take it for a test ride up the street, my heart skipped a beat as the thought popped into my head, this is it, hes gonna give me the bike so i threw my leg over the bike & rode up the road, turned at came back down the hill pulled the brakes and found they slowed me but didn't want to stop the bike, eventually the bike came to a stop & i got off a little shaken but grinning from ear to ear.

its not quite ready to go yet said my uncle
go where? I asked.
im getting rid of it since i never ride it he said.

well my heart sank as those words left his lips.

next week when we called round he said to me got the bike sorted now & it was ready for its new owner.

Really i thought feeling kinda pissed at him for giving my future bike away.

Wanna see it, may be take it for a spin before it goes?

Well how could i resist one final race even if it only took place in my head.

Bike looked amazing new tyres set it of nicely, so what was wrong with it last week i asked expecting to be told that it was my fault it didn't to stop.

he smiled & said turned out that keeping it the bedroom had made the brake pads rock hard & ruined the tyres.

everything had been effected by the heat from the radiator in the room as it had been there for years not being rode, but he left it in for a service, got new brake pads, tyres & the gears had also been sorted after somebody had wrecked the cables by racing the bike in the bedroom & changing gears while the wheels weren't turning, at which point he looked at me & i feeling rather guilty looked away saying who would have been silly enough to do that. I wonder he said with a smile.

so we took the bike outside he talked me through the gear levers & what each one did so i didn't wreck it on the new owner, again i felt disappointed he was selling it but as i was just beginning to realize s**t happens.

so excitement building i threw my leg over the bike & set off up the hill quick brake test proved that they were indeed fixed and in full working order, so it was now time to head down the hill quick as i could, straight passed grannies house to the other end of the road i went, turned & came back, into grans garden and parked up, got off the bike grinning again, my once future bike was being sold but at that moment i didn't care.

The bike was everything i had expected it to be & more. after all those years that i had pretended to ride it, i finally got the chance and finally got that race win that had until now been just out of reach & i won that race by a mile (in my head anyway).

so my dream had been reached i went inside buzzing with excitement.

when were heading home i give the bike one final glance & for a second my heart sank before the thought of the ride popped into my head & filled me with joy, that was a good race i thought.

just as i put my hand on the handle of the car to open the door my uncle says, so after all these years your not taking it with you, i turned to see him pointing towards the bike.

You mean its mine? I said in disbelief.
of course it is ya twit, he laughed. who else would i have given it to?

i think i hardly slept a wink that night, couldn't wait for morning to come to get riding it again, im just glad next day was Saturday & not a school day.

Spent most of the day riding it to my friends houses to show it off, some of which admitted that they thought the bike only existed in my head.

I was the coolest kid on the block for a while at least, lol.

eventually the bike was stolen & found wrecked but not before i had covered countless miles & went as far & as fast as i could as often as i could.

it wasn't my first bike or my last, just the one with the best memories attached to it & i awoke this morning feeling rather nostalgic for that bike and felt like sharing the story with you lot.

So which bike brings a smile to your face looking back on your childhood & how did you end up with it?
 

Globalti

Legendary Member
Nice story. I can't remember a time when I haven't had a bike.

Oh, wait... I didn't have a bike from about 1975 to 1988.
 

Mugshot

Cracking a solo.
That's a lovely story @up hill struggle although I'm afraid there is a small problem with it, you see I once owned the best bike in the world and I'm pretty sure it hadn't belonged to your uncle.
Many moons ago when I was a wee lad and not many familys owned cars my father bought a rather natty racing bike to get back and forth to work. On account of being particularly tight fisted and also having no money I can guarantee it would have cost him very little.
At the time I had a folding bike something akin to this one;
Folding bike.jpg

But in black. It was actually my mums but she never used it and as we coudn't afford one for me (is that a violin I can hear?) I got to use it. For some reason I used to get made fun of when I rode my mums folding shopping bike around. My sexuality was questioned on numerous occasions, so eventually my dad took it to work with him and had a scaffold pole welded in as a cross bar, and the taunts stopped.
My dads bike was where it was at though, but there were two problems, firstly it was too big and secondly it was his. Slowly the years went by and equally slowly I grew taller, but I still wasn't tall enough and he was still using it. Then, he got a promotion in work and the promotion meant he got a company car, a Maxi!! How I loved the combination of those plastic seats and a pair of shorts on a hot summers day. However it meant that the racing bike WAS going to come my way, if I could just find a way to grow a little faster.
While I waited for a growth spurt I took to looking after it, I'd polish it incessantly, I'd take it apart and put it back together ensuring everything was greased and lubricated. It was gleaming.
Finally, the day came when I was allowed to ride it. I went straight round to my mates, who was out of course but told his sister to tell him "The racers on the road." It was everything I'd dreamed of and more, and it went everywhere with me, I'd love to know the mileage we covered over the years.
Eventually I bought my own bike, a stunning Peugeot. I'm ashamed to say I don't know what happened to my dads/my bike, but I had never seen a bike like it at the time and I can't remember seeing one like it since, not in the flesh anyway, I can't even remember who made it, but it looked rather a lot like this
chrome bike.jpg

all chrome, it sparkled and gleamed in the sunlight, my mum used to call it my SIlver Dream Machine, which may give you a clue as to when I was riding it.
That, right there, was the greatest bike the world has ever known.
 

Dogtrousers

Kilometre nibbler
The bike I remember best was an anonymous racer that I bought off a mate of a mate for a quid or something in the mid 70s. It was my first restoration project as a teenager. It had a Suntour Skitter rear mech, a single chainwheel, a (redundant) Cyclo Benelux front mech (which I still have, as a desk ornament), and reversible back wheel (fixed one side) and Weinmann centre pull brakes. I think it had Campag shifters. The original chainring was a mess of curly "sharks teeth" showing it had been ridden a lot, and the bars were covered with a gooey mess of sticky black tape that took for ever to get off.

I was extremely proud of it when I had finished. My dad had the frame sandblasted at his work, and I painted it with red primer and black enamel paint, and did it up with bits and pieces swapped with mates, scrounged from scrapyards or (in extremis) bought and paid for. I rode it fixed for a bit but it scared the life out of me and I couldn't see the point of it. (I was ahead of my time there). Eventually I totalled it (broke the frame by riding it flat out into a parked car).

I often wonder what it was. The 60s era components and the fixed wheel suggest that it may, in its day, have been an actual racer (used for racing, not just a bike with dropped handlebars, called a "racer"). The ease with which the down tube broke in its final crash suggests that maybe it was fancy lightweight steel.
 

raleighnut

Legendary Member
I too got mine, A Carlton Clubman that used to belong to my cousin Graham that I inherited in 78 (borrowed it from 74 but had to take it back every time) did it up with 105 transmission in the 80s and still have it although its a bit small but hey-ho long seat post.
About 7 years back I managed to get a 25inch 531 Worksop built Raleigh frame and built that up to my spec including a 2005 (numbered with certificate) LTD edition Brooks Swallow. Neither are that much to look at as the only bits I clean are the chain, mechs, wheel braking surface and inner cables/brakes but they along with my others are regularly serviced and lubed and ready to ride. I do wash em every now and then but prefer the patina of a well ridden bike to showroom shiney plus thieves are like Magpies, attracted to shiney things. :biggrin:
 

MattE72

Active Member
Location
North Wales
I can remember vividly the two bikes that saw me through childhood into adolescence: I had a Raleigh Commando when I was a kid and then a I think it was called a Raleigh Elite which was a racer/tourer which I got to ride to highschool when I was about 13. It had a 5 speed lever gear and I thought it was ace! I was gutted to find out that it was no longer in my Mum's garage when I took up cycling again the other year; it seems to have disappeared whislt I was living 'down South'. I wish I still had it if only for the smooth ride the steel frame gave, these fancy road bikes don't help your piles!

(As an aside when we were kids everyone had Raleigh, it came as quite a surprise that upon returning to cycling that other bike manufacturers were available).
 

Fab Foodie

hanging-on in quiet desperation ...
Location
Kirton, Devon.
Lovely story up hill struggle, fair brought a tear to my eye ....

Can't really say that I've had a favourite bike, I've had a few and loved them all. I guess my 50s Holdsworth that I rebuilt as a student (and resides on the turbo these days) is the turning point bike for me. It was a revelation to ride after various gas-pipe bikes and I did my longest rides on it, toured, commuted in London, converted to fixed wheel and rode lot's more. We had a lot of happy times and it took me from an every day cyclist to a true 2 wheeled convert. Battered, tired and old ... but much cherished.
 

raleighnut

Legendary Member
Lovely story up hill struggle, fair brought a tear to my eye ....

Can't really say that I've had a favourite bike, I've had a few and loved them all. I guess my 50s Holdsworth that I rebuilt as a student (and resides on the turbo these days) is the turning point bike for me. It was a revelation to ride after various gas-pipe bikes and I did my longest rides on it, toured, commuted in London, converted to fixed wheel and rode lot's more. We had a lot of happy times and it took me from an every day cyclist to a true 2 wheeled convert. Battered, tired and old ... but much cherished.
The term 'Gas Pipe' once referred to the highest quality tubing as it was cold drawn and seamless as opposed to welded pipe which was inferior and a lot of early adverts referred to it as "the highest quality gas specification tube" and made a virtue of this fact, funny how meanings can change ain't it
 

Mugshot

Cracking a solo.
i learned to ride on a bike called a budgie, my big brother had a bike called the tomahawk. Both bikes were chopper style from memory anyway.

do those names (budgie & tomahawk) sound familiar to anybody? Its possible that its just the names that my brother and i happened to call them.
Your memory is spot on
Budgie
johnBUDGIE.jpg

Tomahawk
Tomahawk.jpg

I never owned either of these bikes although a friend had the Tomahawk so I had plenty of goes on it. I had the Grifter, which was missing the front section of the saddle, as all good Grifters did.
grifter-bike.jpg
 

MattE72

Active Member
Location
North Wales
Your memory is spot on
Budgie
View attachment 51990
Tomahawk
View attachment 51991
I never owned either of these bikes although a friend had the Tomahawk so I had plenty of goes on it. I had the Grifter, which was missing the front section of the saddle, as all good Grifters did.
View attachment 51992
I was in Chester on Saturday and saw a mint condition, restored Chopper chained to a lampost. I stopped to have a look and couldn't help think that it must be an absolutel bugger to ride! Didn't stop me thinking they were cool and wanting one as a kid though!
 

Mugshot

Cracking a solo.
I was in Chester on Saturday and saw a mint condition, restored Chopper chained to a lampost. I stopped to have a look and couldn't help think that it must be an absolutel bugger to ride! Didn't stop me thinking they were cool and wanting one as a kid though!
Certainly the Tomahawk was, steering was crap and it was very easy to flip particularly when you were giving a backie, what else were you supposed to do with a seat like that!
The Grifter was a beast though, mine was slammed into many trees, kerbs, backs of cars and banks of streams where a jump was misjudged and still came back for more.
 

raleighnut

Legendary Member
I was in Chester on Saturday and saw a mint condition, restored Chopper chained to a lampost. I stopped to have a look and couldn't help think that it must be an absolutel bugger to ride! Didn't stop me thinking they were cool and wanting one as a kid though!
They fetch a bunch nowadays especially the 'dangerous' mk1 version. Anyone else remember the watchdog type program that slated them resulting in the "improved & safer" mk11. I seem to remember it was John Craven hosting when they ripped off one side of the (welded) handlebars and showed them dangerously tipping over backwards (cured by moving the seat forwards)
 
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