Ultra Violet is a great name for this purple chopper-style bike, and it would be a fun restoration project. It looks complete and these bikes are pretty hot right now. This 1972 Raleigh Chopper Mk2 is listed here on Facebook Marketplace in Waupun, Wisconsin, and they’re asking $450. Here is the original listing, and thanks to Lothar… of the Hill People for the tip!
Raleigh was founded in 1885 in Nottingham, England, and became known as the Raleigh Bicycle Company in 1888. In 1885, Karl Benz came up with the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, widely considered the first practical internal combustion-powered vehicle. So, 1885 was a big year for transportation. As innovative and mind-blowing as that three-wheeled vehicle was at the time, I’d still rather have this bike as it looks now. I’m itchin’ for another bike restoration project. The seller says this is a one-owner bike, pretty fantastic after over five decades. Here’s a website with some great close-up photos of a Chopper Mk2 so you can see the details.
The Raleigh Chopper Mk1 hit the English streets in 1969, with a price of £34 ($46), and was a hit with kids and adults, or adults who were kids at heart. The chopper craze was in full swing with Schwinn’s Sting-Ray/Krate bikes coming out in 1968, along with movies like Easy Rider that also hit theaters in mid-1969. One possible issue with the Chopper Mk1 was its tendency to pop a wheelie, creating a potential safety situation for young riders. Tall sissy bars were banned in the U.S. in 1971 because kids would lean back on them and fall over backwards, smashing their un-helmeted pumpkins on the pavement.
The Mk2 remedied that wheelie situation a bit by redesigning the frame with a jog in it to bring the seat forward, thus transferring the rider’s weight more onto the front wheel. This example looks complete and then some, but it needs some cosmetic work to bring it back to its former glory, as seen in this perfect example. You can see the frame modification in that photo. The red T-bar three-speed shifter on the top crossbar is a cool feature. Here’s what it should look like. The details are killer on these bikes, with an SA on the ends of the little red T-bar shifter, for Sturmey-Archer, another Nottingham, England company, in this case, the maker of the gear changer bits. We saw a 1971 Chopper Mk1 here on Barn Finds a little over a decade ago.
The 16″ front wheel and 20″ rear wheel gave it a great look. I’ve mentioned my old Sears 20+16 bike before here, my “Rosebud” (Citizen Kane reference). My dad gave it away to a coworker who had a couple of young kids, and I’ve been looking for one for four decades with no luck. It was a single-speed bike, so having a Raleigh Chopper with even a three-speed would have been great. They also made a five-speed, but apparently they’re super rare to see today. Have any of you owned a Raleigh Chopper bike, or restored one? If so, what was it, and do you have any photos?
Yes Scotty, I had one back in the day. I have always been a Sting Ray owner since the late 70s when I found one at the flea market for $50. That one I still have, a 1965 blue single speed. Then in the 80s I’m checking out a yard sale in my neighborhood and here is a yellow 5-speed Chopper bike. I’d never seen one before, looked kinda weird, had a console for the shifter, strange frame did not look like a Schwinn. I didn’t want to buy it but the owners didn’t want it either. They took my $20 and I pushed it home and put it in the shed. Several years later one of the neighbor kids saw it and liked it and was going to fix it up so I just let him have it. I was happy to get rid of it. And now I could get $450 for it. Live and learn…
I think I’ve written this story somewhere before but when I was maybe 10 (1972, same as this bike), my parents bought me a bicycle for Christmas. It was an English make, Columbia. I think it was high-end and looked very traditional in a medium blue with white accents, grips, etc. meanwhile, up the street, two brothers who were my best friends also got new bikes, these Raleigh Choppers. So cool, so bad-ass. I was green with envy. I didn’t want to ride my Columbia after that. What a spoiled brat I was!
This is great Scotty. I like the picture of you as a kid on your Sears Bike, along with an orange Lolli Pop too. My sisters 1973 Raleigh Colt with its original twin stripe white wall tires is still in my folks basement. My Dad surprised her with it. Thanks for floating some more old memories to the top of my brain SG!! This is great!! Hope it gets a good new home.
Thanks, Dave! Ha, I think that orange thing is a reflector on the corner of the Winnebago camper!
Good Grief!!! Scotty, I apologize, I need a new bifocal prescription. I totally thought that was a Lollipop 🍭.
Euromoto, I know the feeling, seeing some of my buddys high-end bmx bikes. 💰 I wasn’t smart enough to realize i was lucky my parents were generous enough to get me what I had. 💁♂️
Amen, brother. I had good parents, I bet you did, too. God bless them.
Get out the popcorn, hull less preferably, what a great change of pace from the mishisosh of the world today. I don’t recall too many “brand name” bikes like this in “Press board Estates”, most were homemade, and I never heard that sissy bars were outlawed, oh, boo, hoo, I was the “WHEELIE KING”,,,on my homemade one. And that’s another thing, we didn’t call these “choppers”, like Jello, or Kleenex, all bikes like this were “StingRays”. We didn’t care what copyrights we infringed on, and they all had sissy bars. Once in a great while, at a gathering, you might have seen a Schwinn or one of these, but we must remember, $50, ( a bit more for the Schwinn) was a lot of coin, why just that generator, that hampered travel and useless, especially the way it’s mounted, many know what happens when they loosen up and hit the spokes, set this person back $4.95 as it was. The seat springs do nothing but look cool. Bicycling really has gone in different directions, makes the words “Sturmey-Archer” from the Byzantine era, but by golly, at one time this was the coolest thing. What is cool today? Great find, and yes, watch that shifter when in high gear,,,:0
How it ever got to late 1960s Lae, New Guinea I’ll never know, but the story about the Chopper being “unsafe” made it to me and my 10 YO friends.
I had one of these back in the day. Purchased at Central Cycle in Revere MA back in the early 70’s. They were a “certified” Raleigh dealer and always had these hanging in the window. I’ve seen many of these at Mecum completely restored and they bring big money so this seems like a bargain.
Nice find!
Gotta have an electric bike to be one of the cool kids these days.