Tag: racing

Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?

It was around 1984 that the Raleigh bicycle company in the UK released the Raleigh Record Sprint entry level racing bicycle. I would have been around 18-19 years of age at the time and I would have been working in central London, temping as a photographic technician at the time. I would have been working between Edgware Road and Farringdon, and would be cycling in from Bushey in Hertfordshire every day, about 25 miles each way at the time. I was quite fit back then.

My mum at the time had one of those catalogues where you could purchase items over a period of time otherwise known in the UK as on the, “Never Never”. I loved this bike as this particular model had a lot of Gold coloured attributes, gold handle bars and levers as well as a gold chain set and mudguards. This bike really looked like, “The mutts nuts” as they say.

It was a pleasure to ride however the pot holed roads of London were not the ideal surface for a road racing bike with pencil thin tyres and narrow rimmed wheels. It gradually got to the stage where I was spending more time in maintaining the bike at the roadside, and being late for work, that I made the decision to transfer to public transportation.

I worked with a lad at the time who was mad on biking and he turned up to work one day on what I believe was one of the first mountain bikes I had ever seen. I was very sceptical at the time joking that there were, “No mountains in London” however he was the one cycling the roads of London daily with no issues with punctured tyres or breakdowns.

It turned out that Mountain bikes were the way forward on the mean pot holed roads of central London. Though, it would be a few years before I could afford one of my own.

I’ve seen many old Raleigh Record Sprint bikes since and have always considered getting another. But to be honest they command such a strong price now that to be realistic, it just wouldn’t be worth it as I’m probably never going to actually ride one again.

It was a lovely bike, it served a purpose but was killed by the potholes that were strewn across London in the mid eighties. The roads haven’t improved much since, but the bikes have, hence the amount of them you see if you ever venture that way.

Have a lovely day. Stay safe.