Get to da Choppah!
 

Raleigh Chopper that is! Just got it, pics are in "as found" condition, I've done nothing to it.......yet! :D

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I saw that flick in German. Bad choice. But cool score!

Sweet!

Very nice score, exactly what I pictured when I read the title too! I didn't realize how many old fashioned Raleigh features those bikes had though. So now what are you going to do with it?

Makes me want to get my Chuck Taylor's on and ride up to the 7-11 for some soda and baseball trading cards.

Big Alan Silvestri fan, huh?

Clean it, repack everything, ride it around Philly this summer. :)

I remember that bike when it was in production. I lusted after it when I was about 9 years old.

I'm sure the brakes are horrific. But the AW hub is a champ.

I had a high riser bike, also with an AW hub and a stickshift. Both wheels were 20".

Wow, what 9 year old didn't? But only the rich kids could afford such an exotic stingray. I was certainly jealous.

When your riding her around Philly, make sure you put baseball cards in the spokes!

Sweet! As it should be.

I'd recommend not disassembling the AW hub unless necessary. Drop some oil in.

I spent a lot of saddle time on a similar Glider rebrand, the Fastback 100! Hard not to wheelie on those puppies...grade 6, good times.

http://www.backpeddling.com/wp-conte...1306525022.jpg

Need me some bubble gum and Sgt. Rock comic books .
You can hang a baseball mitt on that sissy bar, BTW.

Looks so good, rides so bad!! Congrats on your score, hope you enjoy it.

Fastback 500, that's what a lucky friend got for his birthday. Another friend and I pulled frames, wheels & other parts out of the trash, and built our own chopper style bikes on shoestring budget. The whole point of course was doing block long wheelies (or "catwalks", which is what we called any extended wheelie). I even did a Don Garlits-style burnout one night, using lighter fluid for "special effects".
When the creek was frozen over in the winter, providing an uninterrupted flat roadway, we tried, and sometimes succeeded, in doing non-stop catwalks on it for 1/4 mile or more. Good times. :)

Very curious to see bits and pieces of other Raleigh bikes. The downtube bottom bracket seattube is Raleigh 20, the top tubes are Raleigh Sports seatstays, the seatstays and fork look like they came from a DL-1 fork that has been chopped down and rebrazed in pieces.

The most curious and most practical parts are the brake shoe holders, they have had small bits of wire and sheet metal brazed on so that the braking forces don't immediately bend the very long brake arms out of shape.

Wheelies....

Very cool, brings back locks of good memories!

I can remember around 1971 or '72 (I was like 9 or 10), my neighbor had a purple Stingray with the 5-speed stickshift. I was SO jealous, but we were good friends, & he let me ride it a few times. One day, my uncle came along with a pickup truck full of old bikes, and gave them to my older brother & me. He was a gabage man, which isn't exactly glamorous, but it had it's perks, including more bikes than him and his 6 kids needed. One of the last bikes we pulled out was a green Stingray, but single speed. I was plenty happy with it though. :D :D That must have been about a year before my brother left home for the Nam, & I didn't realize till MUCH later, how great those days were. :o

Yeah man! :)

Yes sir, I'm not big on tearing down hubs anyways. What type oil do you recommend my good sir?

those are pretty unique bikes. my little sister had the small version called Chipper. really wish my parents had held onto it for posterity.

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Our shop just did a restoration on one and it cost the owner $1000! He paid it!!!! Your's looks more original.

I'll tell you if you kill your signature.

+1... At least make it smaller.

Jee, bikes are my way to escape the inescapable cynical reality. With a ticking AW and the wind in your back there's not a care in the world. So don't remind me what's out there everytime I click your post:p