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In 1976 I lived in Rugeley. I had a nice purple Raleigh Chopper and my friends (from Western Springs Junior School) had a motley collection of racing bikes and their mum's shoppers. We started off going to Etching Hill and did some 'downhilling'.
The summer of '76 was basically a long drought so rain never stopped play. We were out seemingly every day. One of our number was crazy about finding old military emplacements so we went exploring Cannock Chase. I distinctly remember cycling along the road to Birches Valley and going along the fire road to the stream crossing and then turning right up the long fire road climb that is now on the Follow The Dog Trail. When I attended the Follow The Dog opening day, the nostalgia was overpowering!
I'm not sure parents today would give kids as much freedom. We were a bunch of 10 and 11 year olds and left the house at about 9am and didn't return some nights until dusk.
I wonder how many of that group apart from me still go biking?
My Raleigh Racer & Puch Maxi Hybrid.(forks & wheels) worked quite well
Jumped over 13 mates using a Scaffold board leant on a dumped washing machine.
But then we got hold of Honda C90's ( & fitted em with old MotoX tyres) and I didnt get on a pedalcycle again for 25years
The answer is yes. Down the local gravel pits and paths on a polished Aluminium mongoose bmx. With red tyres, pads, grips and saddle. Sometimes in wellies if it was wet. Nearly always with a catapult to blast tin cans and the likes.
I was gutted when my Mum told me about fifteen years ago that it had been sold whilst I was at Uni.
🙁
This Hobo reminded me of my 70s/80s trackers.
[url= https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8537/8646350630_9c0f956b28_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8537/8646350630_9c0f956b28_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/eb3NNS ]Bristol 006[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/82598458@N05/ ]jamesanderson2010[/url], on Flickr
1977, i was bought a second hand Carlton Corsair. drop bars, 10 gears. simplex huret gears.
bars were swapped for cow horns, the curved brake levers never worked well with the bars.
i scrambles, as it was called, on it for 3 years, used a load of 2nd hand wheels from doug hartley cycles in wakefield.
in 1980 i bought a dawes galaxy tourer, and started to ride with the calder clarion. my 1st proper offroad ride was a club run over cutgate.
mudguards, saddlebag and drops.
the week after, i did my 1st ever timetrial on the very same bike.
good memories. 8)
We called them Trackers too, The best ones were 26" wheels, knobbly tyres, cross-brazed cowhorns, sturmey archer 3 speed, straight forks, small front cog, and a motorbike front brake lever.
The forks were just normal curved ones placed between 2 planks of wood and you kept hitting the top plank with a 4lb mallet until the forks were straight and level.
The small front cog mod required a mate whose dad had a welder. You took a normal chainset with the required pedal arm (crank) length and hacksawed the large 46 or 48 tooth cog off, making sure you didn't go too close to the cotter-pin hole, then you gave the same treatment to a raleigh Chipper or Tomahawk chainset to get the desired 28 or 32 tooth small cog which was then welded to the long pedal arm.
I got a Falcon Black Diamond 5 speed racer after taking the 11+ in 1976 but still enjoyed riding my tracker along the muddy lanes. Mine was somewhat lower spec than the dream list above. (single-speed Raleigh Rocket with 24" wheels and some old bent motorbike handlebars).
slowoldgit - Member
I remember taking a cheap road bike offroad in the sixties, no special kit (no money), just learned to ride without breaking things.
Same here, although the road bike got progressively more expensive through the 60s as I got more money.
Apart from a brief flirtation with derailleurs it was singlespeed because derailleurs broke too often.
My favourite bike was an Andre Bertin Course C37 which had every weight weenie bit on it I could get, except I fitted it with Dunlop stainless steel rims and the fattest tyres I could (27 x1½"). My mates used to scoff at the wheels (they would be on 1" and alloys) but I never had the problems with buckling they had.
In the late 70s, we used to take whatever bike we had to the local woods which had lots of natural ups and downs, the biggest of which we called Devil's Dip. Great fun.
I had the choice between 2 unsuitable bikes- a road bike and a shopper with a basket on. My mum was forever telling me off for mistreating the bikes by riding there.
If Phillip Harrison hadn't jumped on my Puch Tracker riding it down the bank into the back of Blakeney toilets, bending the forks I'd have been downhill world champion by now.
Halfords Olympic racer - sprayed silver (with airfix black enamel detail) and added cowhorns. Ready to scramble Norfolk's wildest.
Had we better send out a search party for Charlie?
Growing up in Wednesfield in the late 70's and early 80's we used to ride our "tracker" bikes at "Sideies" which was an area of foundry waste which had a big bomb hole which we used to ride down and get big air out of the other side. It was a natural progression to BMX. The area is now a retail park.
Had a Chipper in the dim and distant past, but rode my Halfords road bike everywhere with no mods - loads of off-road, jumps, drops, gravel, etc. all on the drops and slick tyres.
Would scare me s**tless today, but then it was the only bike I had so that's what I rode. Mates did the same on their BMX/Grifter/Chopper/whatever.
We've moved on so far, but not really gone any further forward...
We used to take bent forks to the local garage for"straightening" under the four post ramp. Didn't last long.
My brother and I used to ride our bikes up and down the cow paths that crossed the fields on my dad's farm back in the early 60's. We'd call it single track now!
I had a Dawes D'Artagnan, single speed with white wall tyres!
Used to ride my Raleigh Super Bomber (Super denoted a derailleur instead of Sturmey Archer 3sp hub gears) on farm tracks
(not mine)
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I want a klunker now.
Chopper for me. It got used for off roading and jumping on the drive with bricks and planks as jumps. This kept going until the stem broke and was replaced by a Raleigh Ultra Burner.
I can still feel the pain of nut-to-gearstick interface incidents.
Late 70's into early 80's i used to ride in linley woods and the ashmounds near aldridge on anything we could find and mend.linley woods also had a devils drop but the largest hill was the toboggan. amazing place to ride as a kid. Only the rich kids had bmx. My best bike was a tour de france with cowhorns.
double post
As far as I can find out, every kid who had access to an old bike and a dirt track rode one on the other. So did I.
If all that was "before mountain biking," when did mountain biking start? I would say it started when my mate and I called the bikes we built for that purpose by that name. Can't call the sport mountain biking before you call the machine a mountain bike. My mate Gary Fisher and I came up with the name. We weren't using old bikes, we built them new, to the same standard as a Tour de France bike
Big difference between that and an old bike on a track
Oh the humanity!
Too much deja vu. I'm off back to my hermit's cave.
Yay, geetar man is back!
On a more serious note I'm glad someone did invent mtbs, now I just break myself instead of the bike.
If it wasn't for the mtb I wouldn't have spent the last 28 years of my working life in the cycle trade.