Raleigh Burner collection!

Dunno if this has been posted but saw this in Twitter….should bring back a few memories for folk of a certain age. I had the Super Burner…

http://http://www.raleighburner.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9486

I bought an old gold super tuff tear drop frame, nitro morsed the gold coating off and built it up with acorns as my disposable income as an eleven year old would not stretch to skyways.

I HAVE a gold super burner bought from gumtree. I am 40

Think I had this one, if not, one very like it…

I had a Nightburner, which i stripped the ‘tint’ off the frame, and also added Acorns, as my market job wouldn’t stretch to Skyways.

I had a chrome burner like the one in verses pic, but without the Skyways 🙁

I didn’t upgrade it or customise it in any way shape or form cos we were povvo, and to be honest, it never occurred to me

One of these in 82

4 of these from 84-89 – made good use of the Raleigh 15 year warranty 😀

One of these for me. I still think Christmas Day 1984 will frankly never be bettered….

I had a blue tuff burner with yellow skyways.

Silver/Blue ultra burner for me until it snapped. Followed by a far superior mrd

I had one of these

My Mum & Dad bought it 2nd hand and spruced it up for me. I loved it so much. I used to be living the dream on the 3 sisters BMX track in the 80s. I killed the cross bar on the handlebars with my chin, after a dodgy landing off some triple whoops. Good times!!!!

How about a VW van to go with it? Burnerrrrrrrr

Super burner for me

Had a ‘Raleigh burner’ in 1982 the blue/yellow model. Upgraded with Shimano DX pedals and simplex mags as my old man thought they were the same as skyway tuffs.

Started racing, soon bent the frame and got a cromo burner under warranty as that was all Raleigh had at the time. What a difference!

Got into freestyle after meeting Bob Haro at a local event, and got a DP firebird freestyle 🙂

Extra Burner, Christmas ’83. 😀
It was the Red and white one, one up from the base model I think, and looked like Elliots Kuwahara in ET. lol

Extra Burner, Christmas ’83

My mate Kevin had an Extra Burner – cool paint job

Didn’t have a Burner, as my Mums catalogue didn’t have them in. 🙂
Ended up with a P.O.S “Rustler”, made by O’Brian Cycles. It had awful yellow 6 spoke mag wheels, & a threaded bottom bracket.

Never quite got over it.
Well, until an act of pure impulse took over, & I bought a GT Performer one day, twenty years later.
And one day, I’ll put on the black Skyways that have been hanging in the garage for years.

I’ve got one in the garage, except mine’s got some mag wheels (skyway tuff rip offs), CW flats and Oakley ski grips. And it’s not quite in as good a condition as that…

I got spoilt.
Christmas day 1983.

The link wont work for me but is this the one. 😀
linky

I had one of these, it was awesome!

I was riding what is now called singletrack on it in the woods back in the early 80’s! The very early 80’s come to think about it!

Black and gold ultra burner for me and my brother had the lesser spotted silver and blue variant.

I broke the top bar on the handlebars too, and somehow managed to get them replaced FOC for some lovely renthal bars.

Me, on my Super Burner which I think is still stashed behind my parents’ shed:

My brother, on his Mini Burner:

(he’s still not worked out how to wear a helmet properly either)

Ultra burner here. Got jumped by 5 lads for it three months later.

verses – Member

Think I had this one, if not, one very like it…

After a bit of googling about I’ve remembered that mine was actually a Raleigh Styler*, not a Burner 😳

Still looked very similar to the one pictured though.

*Later model, cobbled together from a hotchpotch of leftover Burner parts

I had a Falcon Pro something or other as a kid but was always jealous of my brothers Burner.
Decided to re-live the dream a few years back and built this:-


Sold it after about a year as it was to nice to ride!

Drool at the ultra burner. I went to the shop in 83 to buy one, my parents were persuaded to buy a stratton from them instead.
The forks bent, the crank bent, the pedals snapped, the stem bent, the handlebars bent, the seatpost bent, the seat fell off, the hard grips gave me massive blisters.
I have not forgiven them.

Easter school holidays 1983. 😀

I had a hand painted Grifter because my parents believed a proper bike should have gears. I still remember crying at the dinner table and blame them for my expensive bike addiction in later life.

I had the red & yellow burner and my bro had the gold super burner. I rode that bike into the ground more than any bike since.

Just like to ask something that always bugs me about Burners. Why do some of them have such raked front forks? Is it just the way the picture has been taken or is the geometry very very different in some similar models. For example the red/yellow one pictured has dramatically raked forks but the black/gold ultra burner with the same frame hasn’t.

Always wanted an aero burner

Some very good memories of my burner 🙂 One Christmas morning was so excited haha…

Why did the early ones have a bigger tyre on the front?

Answer my questions

Er, another Burner theft victim here 🙁

Mag burner with white frame/black wheels. Some tosser had it off me at knife point on the mean streets of north London.

Any idea how much these are wroth today? Pretty sure I have a dusty super burning knocking round my parents garage…

If memory serves me right, all of the mark 1 Burners with the front two hole gusset were the same frame geometry. They were all made on the same jig as the Chopper, all be it turned upside down, for the front triangle. The forks were very raked on the basic models, this seemed to be the same all through the range except the Ultra Burner. It was only when you got to the Pro or Team burner that you got proper BMX geometry and tubes made from anything but gas pipe.

Raleigh jumped on the BMX craze a bit late, but sold a lot of cheap bikes none the less. They updated the range in 1985 with the introduction of the Aero Burners, oval tubes, but the geometry didn’t really improve. They were still roughly “race bikes” which had the disadvantage of weighing a ton.

Racing had dwindled for ordinary kids, there was still a very big race scene but it was populated by pushy parents and their golden children. The rest of us were riding as most kids did, on any bit of dirt or street we could find. Freestyle was were the cool kids were at. Ordinary riding would later become dirt jumping or street riding.

And they had a larger tyre at the front for extra grip. Well, grip was something the plastic tyres didn’t give you.

UrbanHiker – Member
Any idea how much these are wroth today? Pretty sure I have a dusty super burning knocking round my parents garage…

I saw an original Mark 1 Ultra Burner, still in the wrapping, go for about £1500 on eBay last year.

Sold my Burner with all original bits in 7/10 condition for £150 on eBay last year.

Blimey. If memory serves £150 is more than Santa paid for it! Must have a root round the garage in the spring.

I had the same one as Verses….I got the bike for christmas 83 and then bought some Mag wheels for my birthday. Old school telephone mail order from a shop in Blackpool ,who sent me two front wheels at first!No stw to name and shame then….

+1 Ultra for me

Raced it then swapped the frame out for a Patterson PR200: