![]() In 1995, rock band Supergrass was spotted riding them in the music video for ‘Alright’, catapulting it back into the cultural spotlight.Īnd that’s not the only time the Chopper has wheeled its way through an iconic music video. If the Chopper became unfashionable in the 80s, it didn’t last long. But everything comes back around – and now, those old-school, chunky Choppers are as cool as they ever were. With the rise of the BMX in the early 80s, the Chopper started to fall out of fashion. This propensity for stunts eventually paved the way for a new style of bike – one more suited to off-roading. They were almost a badge of honour, an up-yours to the kids still riding boring. As described by writer Helen McGurk in LeftLion, kids would “compare our Chopper cuts and bruises. The rise of Evel Knievel and other daredevil stunt artists inspired a whole new style of riding, defined by hair-raising jumps and gravity-defying wheelies. It was the coolest bike on the planet – and everyone knew it.īut the Chopper wasn’t just about cruising: it was also about tricks. Cruising around after school, giving your mates lifts, feeling like the raddest person in the world – or at least, the neighbourhood. If you were lucky enough to own one back in the day, you’ll know how good it felt. Meanwhile, disco and punk were exploding out of clubs, and the counterculture of the 60s was still alive and well, adopting new fashion, music and films as the decade went on.īut if you were a kid – too young to get into clubs and way, way too young to care about the Concorde – the 70s were about one thing: the Chopper. And what a decade it was.Īlong with the whole man-on-the-moon thing, the world was getting busy with a host of new technological inventions – including the Concorde, Teletext and the first-ever mobile phone. Launching with the MK1 and developing into the superior MK2, this distinctive bike was an instant success, going on to sell 1.5 million models over the next decade. It was everything they’d been dreaming of. With a design inspired by the same chopped-up bikes that appeared in Easy Rider, the Raleigh Chopper offered something unique and totally new to young riders: the chance to feel like a real Hells Angel. The film became a huge cultural touchstone, with the bikes themselves capturing the imagination of kids and teenagers across the US – and beyond. Released in 1969 – the same year as the Raleigh Chopper – this instant classic depicted two drug dealers riding across America on their Harleys in search of spiritual truth. Then came another big cultural shoutout for the Harley-Davidson: the Oscar-nominated film Easy Rider. And, in the UK, kids were starting to take note. Championed by the Hells Angels, chopped-up motorcycles like the Harley were sweeping across America, appearing in magazines, comics and films throughout the 60s. And bikes were struggling to compete.īut over in the states, one bike in particular was having a moment: the Harley-Davidson. You had wheels – four of them, to be exact. No longer did you need to queue for a bus or hop on a bike to see your mates in the next town over. It might be hard to believe with everything that came next – the Chopper trend of the 70s and the BMX craze of the 80s – but the increasing ubiquity of private cars had started to dampen the popularity of bikes. The early 60s was a pretty quiet time for bikes in the UK.
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