The 1970s….a period defined by political upheaval, strikes, blackouts and the disbanding of the Beatles. Yes, it was unquestionably a time marred by a miscellany of challenging events, make no mistake, but for the average moustachioed male life was pretty simple; a heady fusion of Old Spice, Carlsberg Special Brew, and a perpetual yearning for that oft vinyl-roofed phallic emblem from Halewood…the Ford Capri. People were transparent, uncomplicated, unburdened by the complexities of modern life; smart phones, computing, the internet…all the things which now seem to be dragging us into a perpetual state of isolation whilst simultaneously (and somewhat paradoxically), destroying that last bastion of self-seclusion…our privacy. And, while the world continues to descend into an interminable state of ambiguity, those who are able, fondly reminisce about flares and glam rock and remember a life that seemed infinitely more, well…black and white.
It was a time when a push bike signified independence; men and women alike were mesmerised by that bewitching icon of mechanical wonderment that provided the ability to travel gracefully to and from C&A (no one ever used it to travel to and from the pub, that activity was exclusively carried out in one’s own motor vehicle). And, as a very small boy, I shared that wide-eyed excitement myself, personally straddling that spoked horse of freedom and pedalling like I was Eddy Merckx on acid. In my mind, as I rode to the local newsagent with a letter in my pocket from my mum to buy two packets of Peter Stuyvesant (she always smoked gold), I was him. Okay, so I might have had lighter hair at the time and significantly shorter legs, but I had a comparably ridiculous surname and in terms of revolutions per minute, I probably put way more effort into it than he did, that being the burden of the single speed cycle. So, up yours Eddy Merckx.
As far as serious cycling went though, powering your way to the Spar to buy fags was where it was at. Yes, the Tour De France generated a certain excitement, perhaps even more so than today, but your average punter would have been lucky to have been acquainted with a three speed Sturmy Archer, let alone a Shimano triple chain set or a Campagnolo rear derailleur. People certainly weren’t compelled to rush out and purchase cleat shoes (I didn’t even know what they were, I just found them on the internet). There was no iPhone app to measure distance, time and calorie burn rate, and a weekend cycle was something that was typically experienced at the launderette. Furthermore, any layman who heard the word ‘peloton’ would have immediately assumed it to be at best a radical new sex toy or at worst, a new-fangled Belgian craft lager. Simple times, simple folk…everything was simple…everything apart from children’s bicycle design.
At some point post 1974, my brother took ownership of a red Raleigh Tomahawk. It was a beautiful thing with a design so incredible, so extreme, so breathtakingly revolutionary that I’m sure upon receipt he would have been utterly spellbound. It was to be the first of many hand-me-downs. In fact, I can still remember the day that my brother finally passed over ownership to me, I was utterly delighted, blissfully unaware of the challenges that it might bring. The Tomahawk was essentially Raleigh’s attempt at creating a Chopper for younger kids between the ages of six and nine. It looked fantastic. It looked insane. It looked absurd and idiotic in equal measure. In fact, no matter how you cut it, it was downright ridiculous.
Like the Chopper, the Tomahawk had a frame that resembled a metal farmyard gate, or one of those locking gates that swing only one way to stop you leaving a shop with stolen goods. Atop the short seat stem sat an elongated arse platform which looked something like a Jeffrey West winkle picker, presumably to enable the rider to bring their friend along with them to the corner shop to buy cigarettes for their mum as well. The handlebars were high, wide and a somewhat confusing affair, forcing you to adopt a riding position that made you look like you were holding up a sign whilst sitting astride a wall and not giving a shit. The wheels were similarly confusing, like a reversed penny farthing with a large wheel at the back and a small one at the front as if those were the only two wheels left in the parts bin at the design shop. The rims were relatively wide with fat tyres which were slick and had a tread pattern that followed the direction of travel.
Like its namesake, it was a total weapon and it had attitude in spades. It was every small boy’s wet dream; it was, dare I say it, a Ford Capri with pedals. If you owned a Tomahawk, you were a legend, a god amongst the other kids. It had a look that suggested you could ride up and down kerbs, grind on a handrail, and manual like you were Mat Hoffman. The problem was, despite having the attitude of a Capri it rode more like an Austin Princess. It was slow, wallowy, comfortable even. The combination of wide wheels, slick tyres and directional tread meant that steering was rendered next to useless, as any intentional handlebar movement was translated onto the road with a dangerously lengthy delay. Not only that but the tyre tread forced the Tomahawk to adhere to the smallest of grooves in the tarmac which often led you unwittingly into the path of oncoming cars.
The laid back ‘cool’ riding style impressed fellow riders but enforced a highly uneven weight distribution and this presented as one of the bike’s key shortcomings. The laughably small front wheel only served to exacerbate the problem, providing little to no counterweight when attempting to pull even the most modest of wheelies. This meant that every time the front wheel was lifted from the ground the rider was in danger of rotating a full ninety degrees, with the potential to shatter the un-helmeted (helmets were not considered cycle appropriate attire until much later) occipital region of the skull on the edge of a metre of concrete kerbing. I can attest to this being a very real and often horrifying occurrence. The fact that the brakes didn’t work that well didn’t matter, because at some point your unfeasibly wide bell bottom was inevitably going to get stuck fast in the chain bringing the Tomahawk to an abrupt stop regardless of previous speed. This often resulted in the undesired consequence of sending you flying head-first through the seven-year-old-boy sized gap in the comically U-shaped handlebars.
So, as art, the Tomahawk, like the Chopper, was iconic. As a mode of transport, however, it was an utter travesty, a death machine; Russian roulette on rubber. In fact, the Tomahawk’s only saving grace was that it lacked the crossbar mounted gear lever found on the Chopper which only served to make the Tomahawk’s larger sibling that bit more challenging to ride (if that was even possible). Like garden darts, it epitomised the fact that designers of the seventies went about their work with utter gay abandon, with the consequence that products came to market that had the potential to dramatically reduce the overall headcount of under tens. Perhaps that was the plan? There are way too many of us nowadays anyway.
In purchasing the Tomahawk for my brother, I can only assume that my parents, in a state of trance-like naivety, must have been tragically swayed by its aesthetic. Amusingly, they went ahead and bought it despite its glaringly obvious design flaws, an occurrence that leads me to think that my father, almost certainly being the least safety conscious of the two, must have had the final say. They then innocently bestowed it upon my unsuspecting older brother, himself an innocent party to the excitable fervour that was generated by the Raleigh suicide cycle. Over the course of at least two or three years, they lay witness to the cranial-crushing potential of that two-wheeled weapon of doom and it remains baffling to me therefore, that it was retained as a viable form of transport.
What concerns me more, however, is the fact that, subsequent to witnessing the potential for life-threatening havoc the bike was capable of during its tenure in my brother’s ownership, my parents saw fit to then hand it over to me. I can only assume that I had either caused them some real pain in my tender, pre-junior years, or they were just happy to go along with the calamitous health and safety philosophy of the era. I didn’t care, I loved the Tomahawk despite its brazen desire to kill me. I rode it like a boss, my head hitting the deck more times than Floyd Patterson’s. Fortunately, like Floyd I always got back up. The steering too caught me unawares, once sending me directly into the path of an oncoming Mini, the brakes woefully inadequate to be of any use and an unfortunate wardrobe choice that day meant the hem of my shorts were unable to reach the chain. By some fortunate quirk of fate, I even survived that. Amazingly, being seemingly cast from solid iron, so did the Tomahawk.
I must have covered thousands of miles on that bike, wearing through to the thread of its absurdly smooth tyres countless times. Its bizarre wheel sizes made it particularly arduous to find replacement tyres and it was the fitment of a white replacement tyre (the only one my father could find) to the front wheel that spelled the death knell for that red metal wonder. To my mind the addition of a white tyre made something that looked ridiculously cool look just, well, ridiculous, and the Tomahawk’s days in the sun were finally at an end. Either way, despite being well aware of the dangers of the Tomahawk, like my brother had when it was under his ownership, every time I got on it, I rode that red death trap with sheer, unadulterated pride...right up until the point at which I fell off.
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