A Life On Cars tribute to the Raleigh Chopper

 Alan Oakley, designer of the Raleigh Chopper bicycle, has died today. Life On Cars writer David Simister, who owned two, pays tribute by remembering why the funkily-styled Seventies icon was such a class act...

It’s mechanically challenged, outgunned at the lights by any moped, and has room for just one on its rather exposed seat. Yet the Raleigh Chopper is no ordinary bike, being to cycling what the Mini is to motoring or the Volkswagen Caravelle to camping.

A legend in its own lifetime, it somehow encompasses both iconic and ironic within one spin of its tiny wheels. Running a Chopper is a surreal experience. I bought one way back in 2007 to replace my old Vespa, and although it couldn't hope to beat the Italian scooter on speed, it’s a surprising equal in the style stakes and yet far cheaper.

When I was at university in Carlisle I used my Raleigh Chopper (pictured below) every day to get between my student digs on one side of the Great Border City, the campus on the other and the supermarket, somewhere in between the two. I loved it so much that it was one of the treasured possessions I took all the way to Bristol with me after I graduated, and after a couple of weeks I realised how cool a bike it was after a couple of bolt cutter-wielding thieves stole it while it was chained up a stone's throw from the SS Great Britain. I responded by immediately getting another one - even though it meant travelling to Yeovil on the train to get it - which I still have to this day.

My red Raleigh Chopper MK3, even though it's now in need of a restoration and has sat unloved in the garage for years because it isn't a car, is still one of my most treasured possessions. It is, put simply, as much an icon of Seventies Britain as the Capri or the Rover SD1 were.

Compared to a normal bike, the Chopper feels very odd to ride at first. Those enormously high handlebars seem to have no control over where the tiny front wheel goes, while the comparatively enormous rear makes every getaway a wheelie. Yet given time and a slightly different riding style, it becomes easily one of the most amusing forms of transportation ever conceived. The wacky proportions raise eyebrows, but the reincarnated Raleigh has enjoyed massive success three decades after the ancestor’s heyday.

It’s even practical - the chrome backrest is perfect for loading shopping bags onto, and much safer than dangling them off the handlebars off a normal bike. The modern Chopper’s just gone out of production, but there’s never been a better time to buy second-hand.

Compared to the hundreds of pounds the 1970s originals fetch, now is definitely the time to buy. BMXs might be the more obvious choice for bike-riding yoofs, but with the Raleigh Chopper, you’re making a cool, retro statement.

It’s still not really motoring, but going back to the 1970s has never been cheaper.

Gregor heating - don't compromise on vehicle use!

Gregor Heating and Renewable energy.

We were worried that you were tarnishing the long fought image of the white van man. With your fleet of 35 clearly identifiable vehicles, we feared that they were too small to assert your position on the road and your near tree hugging business was too contentious to make a mark on normal society.

How delighted we are to have been proven wrong, and you are really just plumbers at heart. It is not the size of the van that matters, it is how you drive it that really counts.

Take this example. Posh people in Stoke Bishop don’t want to give up their cars – they want to feel better by installing solar panels to heat their swimming pools. So your driver is quite right to force this tax dodging cyclist out of the way in this quiet residential street on the way to a very important client no doubt.

Maybe the use of your horn could have been better. It was early but these tax dodgers really do need to know their place and it was probably time for Quentin to wake up and get in the 4x4 to school anyway. Transits have better horns, another good reason to consider bigger vans.

But we salute you Gregor Heating. Keep up the good work installing renewable energy for the rich tax payers of Bristol, and well done for treating a carbon free form of transport with the contempt it deserves.

We confess

Ok, we confess.

Just for once, we rode a bicycle, instead of using the van. In the spirit of investigative journalism, of course.

Here you can see a bunch of Bristol Traffic supporters, who turned out to photograph us (naked!) at the Council House on College Green. Shame they weren't naked too, but we don't ask that of our readers.

And here you can see why our fan-base is so attracted to following us.

For once, our copy of The Sun remained unopened. Page 3 is safe.

We feel for the unicyclist

The world naked bike ride

We worry about the sunburn for most of the participants, but for the unicyclist, the biggest risk is that they end up coming off the front of their toy. We can see from the photo that he has wrist-guards on, but aren't sure that will be enough.

We'd also like to see the video from the bloke on the left of the picture with the camcorder.

Laura Local: our favourite new tier-3 provincial journalist

We feel really sorry for the Bristol Evening Post. Most of the real journalists have moved on, leaving only a few people who are actually valued for their knowledge of the area and their willingness to type what senior management want them to write (Ian Onion), and, to replace the others, some unpaid interns trying to learn how to write HTML content to put local journalism as an item on their resume.

In the latter category, then, can we welcome Laura Local, who is now our favourite third-tier reporter for the Redland People subsidiary web site of the Evening Post. We think "redland people" is a bit overambitious, as it implies all the residents check it every morning saying "what's happened in our part of the city?", but that doesn't happen. Nothing much happens there except when some drunk students put some traffic cones on some cars, or the helicopter over stokes croft keeps people awake. Even then, reading about in the Redland People site isn't the way most people discuss some items. In fact, given their readership count, we believe the site would be called "Redland Eight People"; the eight being friends and family of the authors.

Laura, we are pleased to see, is trying hard to get the audience into double digits by printing an anti-cyclist rant. We do that ourselves, which is why our daily audience is in the high double digits, and we can see why a commercial site that tries to make money through advertising revenue would aspire to be as successful. Hence this lovely article, Redland cyclists among the worst in the Bristol? Here's the opening paragraph

I was turning right out of North Road by the Arches when a cyclist, who wasn't wearing a helmet I hasten to add, whizzed by in the middle of the road heading the direction I wanted to go - towards Gloucester Road. I pulled out behind him, as I would have done had he been a car and he stopped in front of me all of a sudden and started mouthing off before jumping the red light.

Maybe I was a little too close to him when I pulled out but I felt any criticism was rich coming from a guy who was bombing down the centre of the road without a helmet and straight through a red light!

We aren't going to defend the tax-dodger, but we will provide some constructive feedback to the author

1. It's not actually a legal requirement to wear a helmet. The only time you should criticise them for not wearing a helmet is when someone gets run over by an HGV driver on the phone, then you can say in the daily mail comments section "were they wearing a helmet" and so absolve the whole of society for their death. We do.
2. It's not illegal to cycle down the middle of a lane. Yes, it annoys us as it stops us driving above 25 mph, but for the troublemakers, it gives them more options avoiding being hit by redland residents who are too lazy to drive to the gloucester road shops, and who open their doors without looking or pull out without indicating.
3. If you were the first vehicle to pull out, and you were parked in the ASL under the arch itself, the cyclist may have crossed the traffic light while it was still green, then if you pulled out aggressively he may have had some reason to express concern.
4. Don't ever admit in print something like "Maybe I was a little too close to him when I pulled out." It removes your ability to take the moral high ground. We never discuss our own driving actions for this reason, or make videos from our van -the police might want them.
5. Gloucester Road isn't Redland. It's Bishopston, on one side, St Andrews on the other. When when it becomes Cheltenham Road it's called "the arches" until you end up on the disputed Cotham/Montpelier/Stokes Croft region where the new Tesco is. Not Redland. If you have to drive outside your own reporting area just to get content to rant about, well, that may show some weaknesses in the "Redland cyclists amongst the worst in Bristol" story. We recommend spending some time in Cotham Hill, which, while again not quite Redland, is full of pedestrians, cyclists, school-run parents and us vans, so creating a lovely mix for new articles, such as "Redland Van drivers amongst the worst in Bristol?", "Redland students amongst the worst pedestrians in Bristol", and of course "Redland school-run parents amongst the worst in Bristol". Together this will keep your article quota fulfilled for a month with only one morning's worth of research. Or you could walk along Chandos Road and have a geographically correct region for the "Redland parkers amongst the worst in Bristol" article.
6. Do try and back up your articles with photos other than faded bike path signs that may convince everyone, motorist and cyclists alike, that Bristol's cycling facilities are dire.
7. If you do want to get a video of someone cycling through the red lights on that stretch of Gloucester Road, stand there with a camera on a weekday evening and wait for one lights cycle: it's not hard.

Anyway, Laura -welcome to the tier-3 anti cycling rant pages of Bristol. Those of us already in the business welcome new competitors, as it keeps us on our toes. Just try a bit harder and we might even feel slightly threatened.

Is "The Fringe" a sign that Cheltenham Road is being gentrified?

We like that bit of the A38 from the Arches to Stokes Croft: our bit of the city. Wide roads, bus lanes to drive and park in, and shops for our lifestyle. As well as the minicabs, there's the car stereo place before Kwik-fit.

Which is why, while we were out stalking the pedestrian from Cromwell Road that we saw something to shock us. A new hairdressers, the fringe.

Looks pretty, doesn't it? But what's that in the window?

A sign

CYCLISTS

SPECIAL

OFFER

(From Monday-Friday)

"HOP OFF & CUT"

£7.50

Apparently cyclists can bring their bicycles into the hairdressers and get a haircut while their bike is kept safely out of the rain, secure from theft or damage.

Can you do the same with a car? No. You can't even park in the bus lane for half an hour for a haircut, not with the CCTV enforcement that's now underway.

The sign in the hairdressers is is a terrible sign. What it really says "we are at risk of losing Cheltenham Road".