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Article: Reborn to be wild: Matthew Valentine swings a leg over Raleigh's new Chopper, but finds it fails to bring back his suicidal childhood tendencies.
- Article from:
- Design Week
- Article date:
- February 19, 2004
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Centaur Communications Limited. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Like millions of other 1970s schoolchildren, I wasn't allowed a Chopper. It was, my parents reasoned, at best impractical and at worst dangerous. I got a Dawes touring bike instead.
My parents just didn't understand. The Dawes may have been lovingly hand-built. It may have survived years of neglect thanks to its outstanding build quality. But it wasn't a Chopper.
The appeal of a Chopper was based entirely on its impracticality and danger. A Chopper offered the chance of wobbling precariously along the streets with a friend riding pillion on the luggage rack. In the event of an accident, his or her progress could be glamorously retarded by a metal bar in ...