The year is 1967 and Alan Oakley, head designer at Raleigh, is on a plane over the Atlantic. He's been sent by Raleigh to the USA for inspiration to help restore the company's fortunes.
It was a good move. If anyone knows about big impressive bikes, it's the Americans. I caught a glimpse of the current series of American Chopper on cable TV not so long ago, and as a nation they have a real passion for long chrome handlebars, multi-spoke chrome wheels and bespoke, hand-painted fuel tanks like you wouldn't believe.
Oakley looked at endless Harley-Davidsons and road bikes, working out what made them cool. And then he watched Easy Rider, that classic alpha male road movie where all the main protagonists were quite simply the personification of macho cool.
On the flight back home to the UK, Alan Oakley designed the Raleigh Chopper on the back of an airmail envelope. It went into mainstream production a couple of years later, selling originally for £35 (the current equivalent of £350). And within a decade, 1.5 million had been sold.
I distinctly remember my friend Chris getting one. Initially, I was very envious. What a design! Lovely long chrome handlebars, a long Harley-style saddle, big enough for two children (something Raleigh had to actively discourage, incidentally) and an optional warp factor-style gear console on the crossbar. And those wheels! 20 inches at the back, 16 inches at the front; doing wheelies was almost obligatory...and involuntary.
But then I rode it. If you've never ridden a Chopper, it's hard to describe the sensation, but to give you a parallel, for me, it was like riding a clown's bike. It was wobbly and unstable, the handlebars were too high to be comfortable and the seat was too wide for my legs to hang comfortably. And woe betide anyone who braked too hard or slipped forward; a very nasty injury involving the centre-placed gear lever console and a groin was the stuff of nightmares.
Not long afterwards, my other friend Ben got a Raleigh Grifter. Riding wise, I preferred it, although it still suffered from that oversized and over-padded saddle, almost as if there was a sort of padding rebellion against the razor-sharp plastic racer saddles which had absolutely no given in them at all.
The Chopper was also painfully slow. I completely see why my parents initially bought me a second-hand racing bike; so that I could get up a bit of speed while still being stable but, because it was second-hand, they didn't really mind me slinging it around Ben's enormous garden and doing massive back-wheel skids.
Alan Oakley's Raleigh Chopper remained in production till 1981, by which time the incredibly agile, versatile and seemingly unbreakable BMX had taken the market by storm. There was even an accompanying brand song, I seem to remember: "BMX boys have a lot of fun" rings a bell, with boys in helmets chucking themselves and their BMXs down water slides. Tsk, those craaaaazy Eighties...
So with the arrival of the BMX, the unwieldy, slow, slightly impractical Chopper faded into balmy summer childhood memory. But, for my generation at least, the picture of them still brings nostalgic smiles. To designer Alan Oakley who died last month, and whose funeral was last Friday, we raise a sherbet fountain and drink a glass of orange squash...
Ashley Morrison is a blogger, copywriter and editor.
Twitter: @Ashley_Morrison
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www.creativepool.co.uk/ashleymorrison
