“I rode that Raleigh Chopper until I bought my first mountain bike. It became a significant part of my childhood, a physical manifestation of my father’s love for me. In a short time, I grew to love the bike and its character.
They were pleased I had one again and we rode as we always did around the area and in the park. The shopkeeper kindly pumped up the tyres and I rode it home, feeling uncomfortable all the way and thinking, ‘nah!’ Looking at the Chopper, I thought ‘What can I do on that?’ Nonetheless, this was now mine. I couldn’t do a stunt if my life depended on it. I’d seen these around in all sorts of colours but they’d never made much of an impression on me. “My face fell when I saw the bright red Raleigh Chopper waiting for me. I skipped all the way to the shop with a big grin on my face, fantasising about this brilliant bike. I couldn’t wait thinking, ‘wow, my dad bought me a bike’. “A few weeks later my father told me to collect a bike for £10 he’d bought from a second-hand shop nearby. There was no way I could get another bike. It was stolen from outside a corner shop. “Sadly, I outgrew the bike quickly and bought a bigger BMX. Just imagine the value of £60 back then when a pint of milk cost 10p, a loaf of bread 30p and bus fare into the city 20p. "Eventually he agreed and bought a Hawk BMX from Woolworths for £60 - money he’d painstakingly saved to satisfy my whim. Back in the early 1980s, when the BMX Bandits film was released, I started pestering my father for a BMX bike. "He proceeded to tell me about a Hull Daily Mail story describing how a rusty Raleigh Chopper had sold for around £700. Explaining his decision to sell, Abdul said: “A childhood friend sent me a WhatsApp message, ‘Dude, you still got your Chopper?’ It is now expected to fetch up to £400 when it goes under the hammer at Hansons Auctioneers, in Bishton, Staffordshire, on June 28.Ībdul, from Balsall Heath, Birmingham, a director of an IT company, said the bike had originally been an underwhelming gift to replace a stolen BMX. The dad-of-two admits he was left embarrassed by his dad's £10 secondhand purchase at the time, but said he soon grew to love the iconic bicycle.Īnd after seeing that a similar model, which was destined for a skip, had made nearly £700 at auction recently he decided to get his valued. The company director had ridden around with pals on the classic bike during the 1980s - much like Mike, Will, Lucas and Dustin in the hit Netflix sci-fi horror. The battered Stranger Things-style bicycle had been gathering dust and cobwebs for the past 40 years in the back garden of Abdul Sidike, 46, in Birmingham.
A rusty 1980s Raleigh Chopper which was bought for a tenner decades ago could now fetch hundreds of pounds at auction after being rescued from a garden shed.