Triumph Rodeo and 'Tracker' Bikes

[Drago]

wow , so many memories , I used to drag bikes out of the local brook to scrounge bits off, late 70s and everyone round where I live was putting cow horns on old grafter frames to ride jumps round the local coal slag heaps or tips as we called it I'm sure I had a conversation about this not long ago with @TissoT who lived just up the road from me .
I remember going to the local bike shop to get bake blocks on an almost weekly basis, jack watsons on chapel lane wigan sadly long gone now , a proper old school shop , jack always had time for you no matter how many questions or how little money you spent View attachment 404728

Is that a picture of you outside Jacks shop?

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Very nice Drago, I'm liking that. The lamp bracket on the fork and the mini-mudguards are very much reminiscent of the bikes being cobbled together when I was a youngster, along with the bars & grips. What did the frame start out as, an old 3-speed?

 

[Drago]

The frame was a 1978 Elswick Hopper 10 speed 'racer' frame that was a bit small for me, and I'd been keeping aside for a project.

 

[Cycleops]

I didn't know there was a 'factory' tracker, the Raleigh Bomber. Here's some video of a guy who's restoring one;


View: https://youtu.be/-MaR5GbIBNM

 

[Paulus]

According to the advertising blurb, it's - 'a real Yankee design'.
Looking at the advert has thrown something up. I'm certain mine had 26" wheels.

I never did quite master one handed wheelies whilst firing my spud gun!

View attachment 347577

I had one of those , It was my Christmas present for 1969. It was a three speed version, with twist grip gear changer. It was blue and gold in colour. 26 inch wheels. The sloping cross bar was for kids who were still growing, like me at the time,12.

 

[Paulus]

View attachment 347586
This is the shop my father bought it from, around 1961. They do Triumph so I think it may well have been a Rodeo.

Exactly the same shop where mine came from in 1969. Sadly no more. But there is a bike shop just a few doors down from where Ossies used to be.

 

[Paulus]

Did the Triumph Rodeo come in a bright turquoise metallic with 3 speed Sturmey Archer twist grip changer in 63/64. If so it was a cycle that I really fancied but was put off by my older brother.

Yes it did,.

 

[Cycleops]

Exactly the same shop where mine came from in 1969. Sadly no more. But there is a bike shop just a few doors down from where Ossies used to be.

What a coincidence! (See my pic on page 2). I couldn't ride when I came to collect it but by the time I got home near Woodside Park station I could. I now know it was a Rodeo.