Words and Photos Ryan Branson

This build was my first serious “low to no budget” build that would be shown to a large forum and judged on as well by the members of Ratrodbikes.com

I can’t even remember how I got the Chopper in the first place,it was all original but missing the back wheel and in a sad state,I instantly got a flashback of when I was maybe 10 years old back in England circa 1981-ish and riding my brand new black Raleigh Chopper with prismatic decals but alas this wasn’t going to be a restore to original condition, instead I sold anything half-salvageable to the purist restorers and let the frame sit at the back of the garage.

Meanwhile while I’m on Ratrodbikes I see a muscle bike build-off competition around August 2014. The rules were loose so I knew the Chopper frame would be perfect for the job.

My style of building is mockup, change parts, re-mockup, change other parts until I get the look I’m after with all the parts I need. Thus begun Problem No 1: forks. I had sold the original 16″ forks and didn’t want another 16″ wheel, I wanted a 20″ to match the rear wheel, a 20″ fork on the front would mean the bike would be prone to flipping backwards as the geometry would make it back-heavy. Solution: 20″ lowrider forks. so I get the 20″ front wheel, also putting the centre of balance forward again.

Problem No 2: I sold the 3-speed shifter cover so now I needed something to cover the shifter workings, and the solution came in the form of an old rectanglur piece of diamond plate salvaged from an old trailer, I cleaned it up and cut a slot for the shift lever to run through, bent the sides with vice grips to slowly form over the rails of the top tube. It came out pretty sweet in the end.

Problem No 3: Sturmey Archer shifter verses Shimano 3 speed internal hub. Solution was to dick around for several… several  hours of adjusting the cable adjuster/outer cable stopper to get that 2nd gear just in the sweet spot. It works, and I’ll leave it at that.

I needed a chainguard as it looked rude without, so I found a nice one on an old 60s/70s 18″ girl’s bike. As this was a muscle bike build-off I needed some detail so I drilled holes in the scalloped front and added some exhaust ports at the rear and heated around it to give it the heat damaged look. I had a nice banana seat with a racing stripe which was perfect for the theme I was after. I went with an old Raleigh 22″ front wheel as it was skinny with matching tyre as I was thinking along the lines of old Dragsters with the skinny Racelite wheels.

I wrapped the bars with boxing wrap to give it the look of heat-wrapped engine headers on racecar/hotrods, accented with champagne bottle caps. I used a couple of alloy pegs that are meant to be for MGP scooters to make the T-handle for the shifter. The head-badge was stuffed so I did my own artwork on it, masked off some stripes on the shifter cover to match the seat stripes, gave it all a couple of coats of hammerite black, chucked on my old number plate for a rear mudguard just for shits and giggles, and added its name to the chainguard and a couple of other decals.

I think I got joint 14th place out of 30 or so entrants to the build off so I was well pleased for my first build that had a deadline to finish, enjoy.