Your First/Oldest Bike?

godtabh

My Gran was cleaning our her shed over the weekend and found this



Not sure if its my first propoer bike or not but is probably 30 years old.

Was bought from Staggs in Lucan before they changed the phone numbers



So I would say its about 30 years old.

Thinking of doing it up for my 5 year old. Any idea where to get replacement parts/wheels?

07Lapierre

Replace the brake cables, tyres, tubes and brake blocks and A bit of "elbow grease" to clean the surface rust off the wheel rims and frame (and maybe a bit of grease in the wheel bearings) and I'd say that bikes good to go! Looks to be it's in very good condition.

VW 1

First proper one with two wheels was a Raleigh Bigshot which was received as an early xmas present.

godtabh

07Lapierre wrote: »

Replace the brake cables, tyres, tubes and brake blocks and A bit of "elbow grease" to clean the surface rust off the wheel rims and frame (and maybe a bit of grease in the wheel bearings) and I'd say that bikes good to go! Looks to be it's in very good condition.

thats what I was planning. Just no idea where to get parts as the LBS doesnt do kids bikes

Beasty

T'was something like this:


Hand me down from my big sister, who probably inherited it from her aunt or one of the cousins. Saw many years of service that thing

MuffinTop86

A Raleigh Bluebird. Just google searched it, the memories!
Now cycling makes me really nervous so I don't anymore.

NBar

This was my first bike and think it's still in parents garage but I know it's been taken apart. Must take it out and fix it up

jerseyman

MuffinTop86 wrote: »

A Raleigh Bluebird. Just google searched it, the memories!
Now cycling makes me really nervous so I don't anymore.

Something similar but brown, remember the stabilisers coming off thinking I achieved so much

07Lapierre

A Raleigh "Dodo" I believe...:o

MuffinTop86

jerseyman wrote: »

Something similar but brown, remember the stabilisers coming off thinking I achieved so much

I was the same!! My two friends in the estate had theirs taken off so I had to rush back home and get my dad to take them off so I wouldn't be the odd one out.
We were the Cool Girls (in our own heads) after that. Ha, good times.

07Lapierre

godtabh wrote: »

thats what I was planning. Just no idea where to get parts as the LBS doesnt do kids bikes

Buy online or I'd try Eurocycles or Halfords if you have one locally.

smacl

godtabh wrote: »

thats what I was planning. Just no idea where to get parts as the LBS doesnt do kids bikes

I did up what looks like the identical bike a couple of years ago that has been through lots of family members. New tyres, tubes, and brake blocks from CRC, sand paper, elbow grease and some spray paint sourced locally. Makes for a great project to do a bike up with your kid and it ends up as a bike they take real pride in.

smacl

First bike was a Triumph 20 folder, pretty close to the one below. I had chopper envy for years after.

cdaly_

godtabh wrote: »

thats what I was planning. Just no idea where to get parts as the LBS doesnt do kids bikes

None of the parts mentioned are 'kids bike' specific apart maybe from the tyres but that's just a matter of a size.

Miklos

The first bike I can remember having was a black Raleigh 'Max'. I thought it was the dogs whatyoucallthem.

check_six

07Lapierre wrote: »

A bit of "elbow grease" to clean the surface rust off the wheel rims and frame.

Aluminium Foil. Wet the foil. Rub the rusted area. Rust sticks to the foil.

Like sorcery, but less effort!

07Lapierre

Miklos wrote: »

The first bike I can remember having was a black Raleigh 'Max'. I thought it was the dogs whatyoucallthem.

My first "Road Bike" was a 5 speed Elswick "Whirlwind".. I too thought i was the dogs you know what, until my mate turned up with a 10 speed bike! when I got my first 10 speed bike (a Dawes),my mate turned up with a 12 speed! some things never change! (we both have 22 speed's today, but his is Di2! ) :mad:

Matt Bianco

First bike was a President BMX which seems impossible to find a photo of which is surprising as I remember them as a really popular brand in the 80's.

First road bike was a Falcon Scorpio which I adored but was unfortunately robbed while training with school ....... took a long time to get over that one ........

Falcon Scorpio.JPG

.....only to be replaced by a Raleigh Pulsar Aeorspoce Contour with it's cutting edge contoured frame

Raleigh Pulsar Aerospace Contour.jpg

Andy Magic

Mmy first bike was a Raleigh Wildcat. I think this is what makes me like tan wall tyres nowadays

cjt156

^^^ The 80's had a lot to answer for!

When I was very young there was one of those Convertible things with solid tyres in the shed but I hated it - handed down from my older siblings.
The first bike I remember thinking of as mine was a Raleigh Tomahawk - a miniature single-speed version of the Chopper.

LollipopJimmy

Raleigh Burner for me

Stock image



I had a few BMX's and had them through my teens, I had many a smashed up face trying to jump ridiculous objects, I was fearless and if I fell I made sure all my parts were still connected and tried again. I once had a broken arm for a week before I went to my folks telling them my arm was sore. The 80's and 90's were great.

I had a couple of mountainbikes then, a 10spd Townsend and then an 18speed Black Diamond Zoom that had an oversize downtube, pretty much unheard of in the early 90's

I stopped cycling at around 19 and then only got back into it 2 years ago.

Eponymous

smacl wrote: »

First bike was a Triumph 20 folder, pretty close to the one below. I had chopper envy for years after.

I learned to ride on one of those! It belonged to my sisters!

Then I got a Universal a bit like this one, but mine was blue:


First racer was a Viking which ended up in bits so I got a Carlton Criterion which was stolen on the last day of my Leaving Cert. After that I "progressed" to a hybrid Peugeot Harvard which is still in service after 27 years. My dad uses it almost every day - he's 84! They're both in pretty good nick!

Tony EH

Raleigh Strika





With a card in the back wheel for engine noise.

triggermortis

First real bike was a Raleigh Chipper in yellow. Later got a Chopper in purple. First 'racer' was a 10 speed Viking

velo.2010

+1 on the Raleigh Burner. I'm sure I had some kiddies bike before that, but the Raleigh was my first 'proper' bike. I covered that thing in Kelloggs reflectors and stickers from all sorts of places.

I remember that we would jam bits of square plywood between the rear stays so it would rub against the wheel and produce a loud squeal. Fairly wore out the rear tyre pretty quickly.

After that, it was a succession of what we then called mountain bikes (probably closer to urban/commuter bikes of today) with an ever increasing number of gears. You were actually considered cool if you had a triple chainset and lots of cogs on the back!

godtabh

Lots of Raleigh bikes!

Alek

Romet Wigry 3, to break the Raleigh combo:

Mean Laqueefa

stock image, but mine deffo made some sound effects

always wanted this tho

rushfan

No recollection of what my first proper bike was like, might have been purple. Where is it now? Most probably part of the Dublin Bay land reclamation project!!!

Tony EH

godtabh wrote: »

Lots of Raleigh bikes!

There was a time in this country when you could only get Raleigh bikes.

Andy Magic

Tony EH wrote: »

There was a time in this country when you could only get Raleigh bikes.

And at the time it was great