I just remembered being 14 yrs old, back in the summer of 19humphy-hmmm and much to father’s chagrin I modded my newish red Puch 26″ 3spd (!) boy’s racing bike. nothing excessive, simply adding cyclocross type tyres and some fairly wide handlebars (‘cowhorns’ as they were called among peers) as was becoming common in our group of raggle taggle teen-bikers.

It wasn’t a mountain bike, more like a proto-ATB, never even having heard of an ATB or any kind of offroad bicycle excepting BMXs.

Promptly headed fast down a muddy bank, up a dirt ramp and forward rolled 180 degrees onto head. Jump measured at 13ft. Result. Bike knackered, parent aggrieved, but the start of something beautiful 🙂

Anyone else have pre-mtb modded bike memories?

Not sure of the brand 10speed racer with the chain on one cog and derallier removed. It had cow horns and grips like ergon now charge 30 quid for.

Not sure of the year 78 maybe everyone else had choppers.

Mate had cowhorns and banana seat, ace for backies, i got a Grifter, then BMX exploded and everyone else got BMXs.

Used to fold the Grifter mudflap back on themselves against the tyre so it sounded like a motorbike until the tyre burnt through the thick plastic 🙂 3 speed grip shifter too, shame they weighed about as much as a ford fiesta, the weight had an effect on getting air off kerbs and down the dirt track…..unlike BMXs

Mine was a Dawes Kingpin folding bike, didn’t modify it in the slightest, just rode it over stuff until it broke 😉

A gold coloured Raliegh racing bike, Sturmy Archer 3 speed, cx tires and cast off mx bars, usually a bit bent. We called them trackers. Late 1970s early 80s. Bit like the below from Hobo:

Bristol 006 by jamesanderson2010, on Flickr

I had a Puch Mini Sprint stripped of mudguards and any excess, bald tyres and used to go ‘scrambling’ in the woods aged 9/10. Got massive air, lost all the skin off my face and about a day of memory. Week off school wearing a peaked cap to hide the scabs! 30+ years later and still like getting loose in a turn.

I got hold of a wee shopper bike and razzed it around local paths, jumped it (in a shit way).

Guess I was 14, 1982.

Once he’d bought something a bit nicer I pinched my dad’s old touring bike, removed the mudguards, fitted a bmx stem & cow-horns, CX tyres and that was my 1st ATB – waaaay before anyone was making or selling them in UK.

Used to fold the Grifter mudflap back on themselves against the tyre so it sounded like a motorbike until the tyre burnt through the thick plastic 3 speed grip shifter too, shame they weighed about as much as a ford fiesta, the weight had an effect on getting air off kerbs and down the dirt track…..unlike BMXs

Did you also pick the foam of the handlebar cross bar? I did this, picked the stickers off & took off the mudguards for that Eighties “murdered out” look. I then flipped it doing a mahoosive jump, smashing my front teeth out with the now un-padded handlebar cross bar..! Sort of regretted that one.

Mid-late 70’s for me with a used 3-speed Sturmey Archer ‘Hustler’ from Townsend or Raleigh, I can’t remember. It had drop bars and was a rather fetching dark green, which could have been metallic.

Drop bars removed, cow-horns fitted and left the tyres as they were as I don’t think my paper round money ever got to be able to afford them 🙂 Ragged the local woods, searching for drops and mud, until it broke and replaced the frame from one found in the the local scrapyard that I painted with matt black blackboard paint and must have come with a mech hanger as I remember this one as a 5-speed with a Simplex rear mech and modified shifter fixed to the bars.

Happy days 😀

Thinking about it.
Pre Grifter was a roadster, sure it was single speed, odd imperial wheel size (close to 700c) used to push them up the biggest hill and cane them back down.

This might be why i can race a rigid Surly KM against Orange5’s and hold my own 🙂

Rear racks with sprung over latches for holding a can of coke and bag of crisps for adventures. The old banana seat extended back over the rear axle and used the rack mounting holes on the frame for the supports.

And the yanks reckon they invented mountain biking…. 🙂

Raleigh Choppers where cool until your first big crash, most likely going through the handle bars rather than over them, and if really bad you caught your sack on the T-bar gear shifter between your legs as you went through the handlebars.
Did think the modern Chopper was lacking in some areas.

In the 1960s, Andre Bertin Corse 37 weight weenied racer – except for the Dunlop stainless steel rims and the fattest 27″ tyres I could get – 1½” (and mudguards).

Singlespeed after the nylon Simplex derailleur broke in half.

Used it to follow the old military roads in the Highlands. Never had any idea of where I was – couldn’t afford maps. 🙂

An ex-race BMX. Wasn’t modded at all for the job, just got on with it being massively unsuitable, and had a great time anyway 😆

Hmm chromed rims.

Near instant death with the slightest whiff of moisture in the air, and burnt out soles of shoes or bent forks from rear ending a car cos your shite brakes on chrome rims in the wet couldn’t slow you down.

How did we make it to this age ?

Mine was a Raleigh Olympus 5 speed I got in about 1975. About four years later it was given the inevitable cowhorn bars. The original brake levers only had enough pull when mounted at the rise in the bars, so you couldn’t cover the brakes when riding normally. Great for thrashing round the local woods and jumping off home made ramps. Last seen when I lent it to some pillock who left it unlocked outside school.

acehtn – Member
Hmm chromed rims.

Near instant death with the slightest whiff of moisture in the air, and burnt out soles of shoes or bent forks from rear ending a car cos your shite brakes on chrome rims in the wet couldn’t slow you down.

How did we make it to this age ?

Remember the dimpled braking surfaces and the red rubber brake blocks? That worked marginally better in the rain.

But the price was smoking/melting brake blocks on long fast downhills on hot days. That was scary.

Mine started as a junior dropped bar racer, 5 speed, Raleigh Flyer, my brother bought new around 1973. When I modded it to be a geared tracker around 1978/9 I went with cowhhorns, a stem mounted gear changer, and I anticipated 1x MTB gears with a 14-30 touring block and a long cage Suntour GT rear mech. Wheels were 26 x 1 3/8 (590?). Weinmann centre pulls, too. Took it up and down the Eston Hills and the upper half of the North York Moors. Sadly, I got a lot taller quite quickly and it only lasted me 18 months. I still have the Suntour mech in the cellar, wasn’t going to throw that away, it cost me a month’s paper round money!

One like the above, a BSA Star Rider, Sturmey 3-speed, swapped the bars for chrome motorbike cowhorns, put Avon CX tyres on it, and dirt-tracked up the woods, around all the country lanes and tracks.
It had 650B wheels on it too…

Yeah nipper we called ours ‘tracker bikes’ also, this was West Midlands 1981ish. wonder where this descriptor originated? Ye Gods I lusted after a Grifter

I seem to remember removing the brakes altogether as the racing-bar levers didnt fit the motorcycle bars. No brakes also negated any possible chrome-rim + shinyhard brake-block issues. Good days swooping and jumping wearing out shoetoes/footbrakes 🙂

Bought a old bike of a mate think about £5. Took off mudguards went to Morrays in Holmes Chapel and bought bright yellow spray paint, riser bars with integrated stem, waffle grips, set of knobblies and some transfers which had a griffin and flames. That was probably 1981. Ragged round Goostrey and Allostock.

Raleigh Olympus for me as well. Cow horn bars made it a “scrambler”. Decorated with an Esso tiger tail and Smartie tops jammed in the spokes. Motorbike sound achieved with a clothes peg and playing card in the spokes.

Falcon 12 speed black diamond racer fitted with wide bars, used to rag it along tracks and paths bent the frame doing jumps off a ramp we built. Amazingly the wheels stayed pretty true.

My brother built me a total Frankenbike:
700c wheel at the rear
14″ at the front
Painted black and white like a zebra
Straight bars but with a lion’s mane steering wheel cover on it.
And a back rack to give my mates a backie..

It was fn lethal but everyone wanted a shot!

Raleigh Grifter for me, thrashed it around Northumberland when I was a kid.

Vivid memory of jumping it on a regularly used dirt section and the handlebars came out of the frame while I was airborne.

Holy cahounas!