What "thing" from when you started, would be out of place now.

[alicat]

^^^^^ snap!

 

[fwgx]

I think that's a Raleigh Lizard: when I started high school these were what the cool kids rode. They had an impossible number of gears: I recall was 21.

They also had that exciting new technology of quick release wheels. I remember one kid at school would always lock his through the back wheel on the basis it was harder to take off, and you couldn't ride it away. Unfortunately another kid always locked his through the front meaning that you could have a complete bike fairly quickly, if lime green and about 30kg was your idea of the ideal bike.

Yep it was a lizard. I remember my Dad getting it along with a Raleigh Coco for my sister and then winding up my mum that my Dad had bought us exotic pets.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

These little mudguards:

 

[midlife]

At least someone has taken off the blue plastic protective film. .

 

[raleighnut]

These little mudguards:

View attachment 809057

Dunno how true it is but regulation mandated mudguards I was told........................Plus they kept crap off the brake pivots.

 

[Methersgate]

The modern equivalents which independently clamp onto the cables work extremely well

Don’t you need aero bars for them?

 

[raleighnut]

Don’t you need aero bars for them?

Nah, they are called 'interrupter levers' often fitted to touring/Audax bikes

 

[TheDoctor]

The first LED bikelights - Vistalites? With green or yellow LEDs at the front because white ones weren't a thing.
Dynamos that live under the bottom bracket, in the spray from the back wheel.
Steel rims, with a braking response you could measure with carbon dating...

 

[a.twiddler]

The first LED bikelights - Vistalites? With green or yellow LEDs at the front because white ones weren't a thing.
Dynamos that live under the bottom bracket, in the spray from the back wheel.
Steel rims, with a braking response you could measure with carbon dating...

Regardless of the colour, the lights seemed marvellous to me because they made the batteries last for days rather than about four hours.

I had a Sanyo dynamo under the bottom bracket which also seemed a revelation. Low drag, high efficiency, at least until it rained and started slipping. All sorts of solutions were suggested in the cycling media (all printed back then). Gluing old inner tube to the roller, glue sprinkled with sand and allowed to set, only ride in the dry. My wizard solution was to drill a hole in the headlamp bracket of the Karrimor front carrier which I had fitted and bolt it there so it ran on the front wheel. It looked a bit odd stuck out there, and the extra weight ahead of the steering axis took a bit of getting used to, but it worked! A bonus was that you could engage/ disengage it while riding. Its downfall once more was when it rained. It didn't slip, but it caused a stream of water to curl back over the roller and mostly end up in your face. Undeterred, I fashioned a sort of mudguard from some aluminium sheet to cover the roller. Now it worked the way it should, though it looked pretty hideous. The lighting set up was pretty good, if not pretty. The finishing touch was when I managed to get hold of a battery back up pack. Now, if it should momentarily slip due to mud or snow, or I stopped, I would still have lights! It wasn't a perfect solution but it worked for me for a few years. It was only superseded when LED lights became cheap and efficient enough to make all that ironmongery redundant, and it was just so easy to clip them on or off.

Steel rims. When I had my first bike when I was a kid I lived in Barnstaple on top of a hill (well, it was Devon). Naturally my school was several miles away at the bottom of the hill. I didn't know then that there was any alternative to steel rims, though I knew kids who had knurled steel rims on their bikes. We just assumed that all bike brakes were useless in the wet. So, every day, rain or shine, I would run the gauntlet of that long hill, crossing a small roundabout on the way down and a main road at the bottom. If it was wet, I would start braking as soon as I got on the road outside the house, and mostly take my bike for a walk on the way home. For a small weedy kid I must have been super fit. What were my parents thinking? How did I not die? That was just the reality of life in the mid 1960s. You just accepted what you had and made the best of it. Despite all this, or maybe because of it, I loved my bike!

 

[Mike Ayling]

Regardless of the colour, the lights seemed marvellous to me because they made the batteries last for days rather than about four hours.

I had a Sanyo dynamo under the bottom bracket which also seemed a revelation. Low drag, high efficiency, at least until it rained and started slipping. All sorts of solutions were suggested in the cycling media (all printed back then). Gluing old inner tube to the roller, glue sprinkled with sand and allowed to set, only ride in the dry. My wizard solution was to drill a hole in the headlamp bracket of the Karrimor front carrier which I had fitted and bolt it there so it ran on the front wheel. It looked a bit odd stuck out there, and the extra weight ahead of the steering axis took a bit of getting used to, but it worked! A bonus was that you could engage/ disengage it while riding. Its downfall once more was when it rained. It didn't slip, but it caused a stream of water to curl back over the roller and mostly end up in your face. Undeterred, I fashioned a sort of mudguard from some aluminium sheet to cover the roller. Now it worked the way it should, though it looked pretty hideous. The lighting set up was pretty good, if not pretty. The finishing touch was when I managed to get hold of a battery back up pack. Now, if it should momentarily slip due to mud or snow, or I stopped, I would still have lights! It wasn't a perfect solution but it worked for me for a few years. It was only superseded when LED lights became cheap and efficient enough to make all that ironmongery redundant, and it was just so easy to clip them on or off.

Steel rims. When I had my first bike when I was a kid I lived in Barnstaple on top of a hill (well, it was Devon). Naturally my school was several miles away at the bottom of the hill. I didn't know then that there was any alternative to steel rims, though I knew kids who had knurled steel rims on their bikes. We just assumed that all bike brakes were useless in the wet. So, every day, rain or shine, I would run the gauntlet of that long hill, crossing a small roundabout on the way down and a main road at the bottom. If it was wet, I would start braking as soon as I got on the road outside the house, and mostly take my bike for a walk on the way home. For a small weedy kid I must have been super fit. What were my parents thinking? How did I not die? That was just the reality of life in the mid 1960s. You just accepted what you had and made the best of it. Despite all this, or maybe because of it, I loved my bike!

I had one of those dynamos.
Steel rims, as an apprentice Chartered Account I did not have much money but I upgraded to Sturmey Archer drum brakes which were a big improvement.

 

[Methersgate]

Oh gosh… steel rims! (you could still bend them… after you didn’t stop …DAMHIKT!😉) Mills dynamo on the tyre. Water bottles rigged with long tubes. Heavy pressed steel carriers.

 

[dicko]

Single speed bicycles with back pedal brakes.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Single speed bicycles with back pedal brakes.

We still see a lot of bikes here with backpedal brakes. Some city bikes also have V-Brakes.

 

[dicko]

A front wheel cable operated brake which consisted of a block of rubber forcibly pushed down onto the front wheel tyre outer circumference to slow it down.
edit, called a spoon brake or plunger brake.

 

[raleighnut]

Regardless of the colour, the lights seemed marvellous to me because they made the batteries last for days rather than about four hours.

I had a Sanyo dynamo under the bottom bracket which also seemed a revelation. Low drag, high efficiency, at least until it rained and started slipping. All sorts of solutions were suggested in the cycling media (all printed back then). Gluing old inner tube to the roller, glue sprinkled with sand and allowed to set, only ride in the dry. My wizard solution was to drill a hole in the headlamp bracket of the Karrimor front carrier which I had fitted and bolt it there so it ran on the front wheel. It looked a bit odd stuck out there, and the extra weight ahead of the steering axis took a bit of getting used to, but it worked! A bonus was that you could engage/ disengage it while riding. Its downfall once more was when it rained. It didn't slip, but it caused a stream of water to curl back over the roller and mostly end up in your face. Undeterred, I fashioned a sort of mudguard from some aluminium sheet to cover the roller. Now it worked the way it should, though it looked pretty hideous. The lighting set up was pretty good, if not pretty. The finishing touch was when I managed to get hold of a battery back up pack. Now, if it should momentarily slip due to mud or snow, or I stopped, I would still have lights! It wasn't a perfect solution but it worked for me for a few years. It was only superseded when LED lights became cheap and efficient enough to make all that ironmongery redundant, and it was just so easy to clip them on or off.

Steel rims. When I had my first bike when I was a kid I lived in Barnstaple on top of a hill (well, it was Devon). Naturally my school was several miles away at the bottom of the hill. I didn't know then that there was any alternative to steel rims, though I knew kids who had knurled steel rims on their bikes. We just assumed that all bike brakes were useless in the wet. So, every day, rain or shine, I would run the gauntlet of that long hill, crossing a small roundabout on the way down and a main road at the bottom. If it was wet, I would start braking as soon as I got on the road outside the house, and mostly take my bike for a walk on the way home. For a small weedy kid I must have been super fit. What were my parents thinking? How did I not die? That was just the reality of life in the mid 1960s. You just accepted what you had and made the best of it. Despite all this, or maybe because of it, I loved my bike!

There always were brake blocks that worked on Chromed rims in the wet, Fibrax brake blocks were so abrasive that if you used them on Aluminium rims would just eat them away in minutes had some sort of cord or fibre embedded in the rubber.