Trackers

Christ, when i started riding on road in the early 80's and we weren't being driven off the roads in the slightest. No idea where he got the idea that it was happening in the 1970's. Unless he has a completely skewed view of risk!

Mid-late 90's onwards was a completely different story!

For me I'd always wanted a motorbike and off road cycling was as close as I could get and so exciting. You could find the limit of grip, unlike on a road bike. When I got a moped in '78 and a motorbike in '79 I was still riding my "scrambler".

He did grow up in London, maybe motor vehicle conjestion arrived there first?


Meanwhile, here's the story of a 'Tracker' bike with homemade front suspension:



https://www.mbr.co.uk/news/my-dad-inven ... ike-358753

These creations remind me of the 3 wheel BMX tandems that we created in the late 80's.
Thinking about this they were bloody dangerous as they were created by joining 2 BMX's front to rear dropouts at the wheel nuts and they used to swivel around the rear axle of the lead bike. diamondback forks used to be best as the style of dropout offered more security (by virtue of the ends being bent outward slightly). They used to be damn fast and have good offroad ability for a single gear. The fad only lasted a few months though and in that time no tandems separated fortunately so we can look back on the concept as successful but flawed.

Carl.

Hiya I stumbled across this thread yesterday & it’s ACE!
Brilliant seeing some old pics & hearing tales from different parts of the UK.
Thought i’d share a pic of my lastest version of my ‘tracker’
There’s a couple of pic of it on page 4 of this thread (I think)

Here’s an old article from about 10years ago too
https://theradavist.com/2011/07/beautif ... launchpad/

I used to import Brooklyn Machine Works bikes into the UK. They mainly did bmx & mountain bikes, but when they brought a track bike out (the Gangsta) with straight bladed forks I thought that’s it I’m gonna build me a tracker!
Originally I was gonna use 26” mtb rims, then they ran out of the bladed tubing for the rear stays and the Lauchpad frame was born. This was even better for building a tracker. I told the lads in the US about these bikes with cowhorn bars & they’d no idea what I was taking about!
Joe built me a frame with a plate to fix a coaster brake hub.
The shop where I got the bars in Bklyn had an old 2 speed kickback coaster hub of an old schwinn. When I went to pick it up the dude gave me the whole wheel & I had to cut the hub out of the spokes to bring it back to the UK.
Currently the bike has 700c rims on it with cyclocross tyres & a 2 speed Sturmey Archer rear hub.

Welcome to the site Ged, cool bike! Love those forks

Cool as.....