Forgotten Cycling slang

[Yellow Saddle]

Avocet computer, the first modern speedometer I remember, before that I remember the mileage recorder by the front hub that clicked over with a thing fastened to the spokes, and the speedo that had a cable coming from contraption on the front hub, but I can't remember if they had specific names.

Unfortunately I also had one of those. I bought it because the colour matched my bike, certainly not for reliability or battery life.
Have a look at this, for a walk down memory lane. For some reason they keep the website alive, even though the company died ages ago.

Avocet

 

[BADGER.BRAD]

Cow horns = wide bars fitted to you tracker bike (early home made version of the mountain bike ,normally on a tight budget)
Tracker =racer bike fitted with wide bars for off road riding and attempting to kill your self
Peddle back brakes=coaster brakes

Not a cycling term but does anyone remember seeing racer bikes with the handle bars turned upside down to give you a higher riding position ? Or cyclists with their trousers tucked into tier socks to stop their right leg being dragged into the chain wheel, or bikes with different size wheels built out of bits ?

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Cow horns = wide bars fitted to you tracker bike (early home made version of the mountain bike ,normally on a tight budget)
Tracker =racer bike fitted with wide bars for off road riding and attempting to kill your self
Peddle back brakes=coaster brakes

Not a cycling term but does anyone remember seeing racer bikes with the handle bars turned upside down to give you a higher riding position ? Or cyclists with their trousers tucked into tier socks to stop their right leg being dragged into the chain wheel, or bikes with different size wheels built out of bits ?

We used to chop and flop the bars, turn the drop handlebars upside down and cut off the bottom of the bars.

 

[Justinitus]

Or cyclists with their trousers tucked into tier socks to stop their right leg being dragged into the chain wheel

I still do this...

 

[Gravity Aided]

I still do this...

As do I.

 

[Illaveago]

Cow horns = wide bars fitted to you tracker bike (early home made version of the mountain bike ,normally on a tight budget)
Tracker =racer bike fitted with wide bars for off road riding and attempting to kill your self
Peddle back brakes=coaster brakes

Not a cycling term but does anyone remember seeing racer bikes with the handle bars turned upside down to give you a higher riding position ? Or cyclists with their trousers tucked into tier socks to stop their right leg being dragged into the chain wheel, or bikes with different size wheels built out of bits ?

Tracker. We called them Dirt track bikes. I think it was before the people who came up with the idea of mountain bikes we even born .

 

[Illaveago]

For those still at a loss.

View attachment 435342

One way of taking up the slack I suppose !

 

[Illaveago]

When people talk about some steel bikes being made of gas pipe, they should first of all compare them with the old newspaper round bikes which WHS had in the 60's . Built like tanks and had a similar weight !

 

[pawl]

Up the league.Up the Union

 

[pawl]

If you had 2 chainrings it was a "double clanger". I had a mate who refused to fit front derailleur and would bend down and lift it with gloved fingers.
In Uppadines (anyone from Donny knew it) window there was only Campagnolo gear. Only others I remember, as a kid, were Huret and Simplex.

You missed Benelux.

 

[snorri]

I still do this...

Me too, unless I'm wearing wellies.

 

[yello]

Bear traps, to me, where MTB / off road pedals - large metal platformed pedals with serrated-like edges, they could be nasty, right shin gougers. Cleated MTB pedals were spuds, specifically SPD but generically any cleated MTB pedal.

 

[Slick]

When people talk about some steel bikes being made of gas pipe, they should first of all compare them with the old newspaper round bikes which WHS had in the 60's . Built like tanks and had a similar weight !

Similar for me although I came a bit later in the mid 80's, the bakery I delivered for kept their bike from the 60's which had the small wheel at the front and weighed a ton. It still had the old rod brakes which never worked.

 

[Smokin Joe]

You missed Benelux.

Nobody misses Benelux

 

[SuperHans123]

In the BMX heyday of the Eighties, Bunny Hops and how many you could manage was a common sight.
Often though, if you had a Raleigh Burner with the standard rat trap pedals, you would slip mid-hop and the pedals would spin around to smash you in the leg, for which I still have the scars. (Now 50)
It was called 'the shin cruncher'