Bicycles from your childhood

[bluebc]

My first bike was the budgie , absolutely loved it.
Always remember being jealous of a mate when I was a bit older was his grifter with gears

 

[Boo or Boo-urns]

Raleigh Commando, a poor kids Grifter.

 

[TonyM]

Raleigh Eighteen - I honestly think I was in love with it. Good job it was before I learned about sex.

 

[dickie davies]

I always had hand me down bikes, then for Christmas one year I was bought a proper one. Just a normal bike and it cost £28
When I started work I bought myself a racing bike and the old one was passed onto my younger brother, who himself wanted a racing bike, so my Dad traded it in and got £50 for it!

But as a kid riding round on my hand me down boneshaker, my mate was bought a Raleigh Chopper which was space age
A couple of years ago, I visited the Lakeland car museum, which is fabulous and upstairs they have a cycling section where amongst the exhibits is a chopper
What a pile of shite it looked

 

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

I was bought a new bike for my 14th Birthday.

My dad being a tight arse insisted on buying one that I would not grow out of. I had that bike for about 10 years and it was always to big.

 

[Blue Maverick]

My first bike was something called a thunderbird I think, but my first real bike was one of these

 

[give it to gordon]

Use to go down the local tip and find old frames, wheels etc to make our own bikes.

 

[doots]

Silver Grifter with 3 gears.
A thing of beauty.

 

[Dirty Harry]

Always preferred the look of the ‘Raleigh Chipper’, and then later ‘The Grifter’, the introduction of ‘The Grifter’ incidentally was a bit of a ‘Eureka’ moment for me as a kid, maybe in a ‘Happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want, kind of way, we weren’t well off at all, and I knew the chances of ever getting a Chipper, Chopper, Grifter or whatever was a pipe dream, even secondhand.

One Christmas when I was about 10, I remember coming downstairs , my presents on one side of the settee, my brothers (who was 13) on the other, in the middle, was a 24” Malboro bike, a few scratches etc and could see it was secondhand, just thought “our kids gonna love that” and never gave it a second thought.

Anyway, once I’d opened all mine and gave my Mam a love and said thank you, she said “what about your bike, do you like it”? Seriously , I was like 1970s OMFG ! couldn’t believe it, best Christmas I’d ever had (or since) and really couldn’t understand how they’d managed to afford it, she’d often go in her purse and there would be like 3p in there.

Went outside to see all my mates as you did, and sure enough, they all had the latest Choppers, Racers and Grifters etc (which was a brand new model that year) , all showing off, laughing at mine, but I didn’t care, this was my pride and joy, and I took so much pleasure absolutely fuckin pasting the lot of them in all the races we did on it.

Last year though, I only got to find out how my Mam managed to afford to buy that bike (she’s 80 this year) , we got into a conversation about when we were little and she asked when my favourite Christmas was as a kid, without hesitation I told her the year they got me that Raleigh Malboro, and that I still remember that day like it was yesterday, she then burst into tears and told me she’d had to sell her Nans jewellery passed down to her just to put a deposit in it at ‘Threadgolds’ on Hollyhedge road, then it took her a year to pay off the balance by taking an extra job in the evening, she so glad I remembered it so well.

Afterall that, I remember having big plans for it, Renthals, double headstock, one of those speedway discs etc and was going to Belle View the next day having saved my money for years, went into the back garden, and some thieving twat had nicked it.

TLDR got a bike I wasn’t expecting, leathered my show off mates on their Grifters etc, Mam was well chuffed I remembered it 50 years on, some twat nicked it from the back garden.

 

[Dr Jacoby]

Suzie from down the road. I always wonder what happened to her.