BigChopper

Hi y’all, 12 years ago on the 17th September 2010, I was involved in a near-fatal motorcycle accident. I was rescued by the Essex & Herts Air Ambulance Trust (EHAAT) who flew me to Addenbrookes Hospital where I stayed in a coma for sometime, waking up to some truly life-changing and horrendous injuries. In the last 12 years I’ve been trying to keep fit but also thinking of a way to raise money to say thank you to them. In June this year I rode my custom 1973 Raleigh Chopper tandem with my son Reu, around Buckingham Palace in the Platinum Jubilee Pageant for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. That spurred me on to an idea. I’m going to ride from London to Paris and try and set the world record for the longest distance ever ridden on a Tandem Raleigh Chopper, in order to raise funds, and awareness of these brilliant people Who saved my life and my family. The thing is my old bike just about made it around Buckingham Palace, it weighs a ton and would probably not make more than a few miles before the thing fell apart (which is what it did, twice in the Pageant!). Raleigh UK have already offered to put up some money and are backing me in my attempt so we already have some PR and this is highly likely to end up getting TV coverage as well as newspaper coverage (unfortunately they don’t have the facilities in the UK to build one-off frames anymore). We are looking for a frame builder and anyone else who can help us build the bike, bearing in mind this is a charity but whoever helps will be sure to receive some significant publicity on the back of their efforts. We are wrapping a T6 VW campervan with logos of the helpers and with certain TV coverage potential, this could be quite an exciting opportunity for someone who is looking to expand getting the name of the company known so well or even sell their business. If this is something that interests you, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. Thank you for reading! Simon

Lburdet1

Raleigh chopper tandem- hi there, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I had seen this ride down the mall in London, I built this bike 5 years ago from two mk 2 frames a silver and red frame using as many New old stock parts I could find, with a custom front crank and cabling, I did one charity run when I first built it but then hired it to shops for display, had to sell it due to falling on hard times, I regretted it ever since! Glad to see someone else has put it to good use! Xx