The summer of 1983.

BMX mania had swept the world.  

All year I dreamed of receiving a BMX for Christmas. The day finally arrived and there was a BMX shaped gift under a blanket just for me! In glorious rapture I pulled the blanket off to find (insert record scratch noise here) a Raleigh Grifter.

‘Disappointed’ was the understatement of the year for me in that moment. I knew I should be grateful but my emotions betrayed me. With leaking eyes my exact words were, “Thanks mum and dad but I wish it was a BMX.”

Grifter: Children’s bicycle manufactured and marketed from 1976 and until early 1983 by the Raleigh Bicycle Company of Nottingham, England.

Grifter Pros:

  • The gear shift (which was incorporated in to the handle grips and was controlled with a twisting motion).
  • Looked like a BMX from afar if you squinted.

Grifter Cons:

  • Chunky, heavy and cumbersome (felt more like a riding an seaplane than a bicycle).
  • Most definitely not a BMX.

Don’t get me wrong – Grifters were cool.  Cool until BMXs were invented, then they became insult-magnets for every BMX rider the world over.

I quickly became pariah to every BMX riding boy of Owairaka Primary School… but I wasn’t alone in the world. There were two other tormented souls that were suffering the same cruel fate as me: Bhupesh Patel and Darryl Gerken. Our two-wheeled abominations became the catalyst of friendship.

The Grifter Gang years had begun.

I grew to love my Grifter and spent most of my afternoons, weekends and school holidays all over west Auckland with the other two members of the GG.  Needless to say we pulled many a sweet jump on the ‘Poorman’s BMX’ (which nowadays I might add, are highly collectible to retro buffs and worth $$$.

Well that was 42 years ago.

As I am writing this, my wife and daughter are berating me for having no less than three unfinished retro bike restoration projects on-the-go in the living room.

Ahhh the nostalgia.

Here’s me (trying to look grateful) on Christmas day in 1983, sporting my Grifter… and my stubbies, and my shirt tucked into the stubbies, and my bowl cut, and my buck teeth…