The younger brother of the Chopper, the Grifter was the cool bike of the 80's. Like the Chopper, the Grifter was a chunky, heavy, cumbersome bike that felt more like a motorbike than a bicycle.
The most innovative thing about the Grifter was the gear shift which was incorporated in to the handle grips and was controlled with a twisting motion.
Do You Remember Raleigh Grifter?
Do You Remember Raleigh Grifter?
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Anonymous
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when the grifter first came out nearly half the estate had one so you can imagine the bike gangs that rode around. My best mate who is dead now, sadly, used to peddle the bike while i sat on the cross bar sideon, we would race down the hill and at the bottom was a ramp were the hill ended and we would fly through the air like eddie the eagle edwards. Its a shame they dont make them anymore, why cant they bring them back like they have done with the Chopper
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Anonymous
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ok so its not a grifter story but it is still funny none the less i had a mate in the 80,s who decided to paint his sisters bike , but to paint it with a model paint brush , when he had finished the job i asked him why he had painted a black line on the front tyre , to which he replied , its a speedo , the faster it goes round the faster i am going , so off we went at a pace , and sadly he was so engrossed looking at his new make shift speedo he ran into a wall and wrecked the bike , laugh , i though my pants would never dry !!!!!!!!
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Anonymous
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my friend had a raleigh burner and he used to give me a frontie , ( where you sat on the v handlebars) , we were coming back with fish and chips one day , sadly his handlebars slipped , i went under the front wheel and his mum ended up with tyre tracks across her fish and chips , when she asked whay we just went red and laughed , i now got me a grifter at 36
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Anonymous
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I had a Grifter mk2 silver with a yellow electronic horn on Christmas 1982 but apart from being the coolest bike ever it was incredibly tough. I used to leave it in the drive after school and my dad complained that if he saw my bike in the driveway again he would run it over and well he did I was having my tea when I heard him come in the drive and hit my bike it sailed through the air ending up on the far end of the garden undamaged but my old mans car bumper was dented ha ha loved that bike.
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Anonymous
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I had two griffters over the years, although I had them in the early 90's just before my move on to BMX.. I always saw them as Raleigh's first toe dip into the market before releaseing the awesome burners.. I had like 3 burners over the first half of the 90's too.. the odd griffter part used to migrate when a Red R nut was neded.. bling bling ;-)
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Anonymous
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the grifter and i dated for a while but it was nothing serious, it all ended when i found out that the grifter didnt want children, was a fan of ZZ top and had the collected works of william shakespeare thrown into a river as a childhood prank.
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Anonymous
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As a kid we weren't very well off and therefore I didn't get a Grifter but my mate David Scott and I lusted after them. Then one day in summer of 80 or 81 his Dad won the Pools and he was bought a spanking shiny silver mkII. He rubbed my nose in it ending our friendship and became a spoilt brat. I later got a new Raleigh Burner which was the coolest bike but his Dad was so tight he had to keep his Grifter. How I laughed............
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Anonymous
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I had a second hand raleigh grifter XL when I was 11 (I was in foster care at the time) and I was well delighted with it, in my head it was a great big black and red beast that needed taming and I was the master, yeah everyone laughed cos it was such a monstor of a bike, but I beat everyone in races on their bmx's cos of the 3 gears even at most jumps, my cousin had the chopper and nearly killed both of us on it, so the grifter is the better....HAIL TO THE KING BABY!!!!
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Anonymous
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ive got a grifter for sale if anyone is interested!? i was actually just surfing the net to see if there was any interest in them when i came across this site so a bit of free advertising is needed i think. ok, so grifter... no idea the model but will find out. has been used once if its lucky so tires, stickers, seat everything brand new, even comes with origional spider webs cant get better than that. interested? email me- margaret.devaney@strath.ac.uk thanks
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Anonymous
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We used to stip them down and use them for jumps etc. That was untill the metal at the bottom of the head stock cracked!!!! Also we used to take off the twist grip gears and use a spoke to hold the bike in second gear LOL. I also had a Tracker (only available in blue) which had front suspension :-) .......Cant find any info on these :-( Then of course BMX hit these shores :-)
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