This is how i bought it



And how it looks today

I had a Raleigh Commando similar to this one. Ace bike apart from, as already mentioned, sturmey-archer gears that never worked properly..

Superb pics! Brought back some happy memories. I had a silver Grifter with the larger mudguard. I loved it. The blue, yellow and red gears, the comfy saddle. Miles better than a BMX. Had a Budgie before I was big enough for the Grifter.

Great job that CC!

Doing them up like that you should start a little business knocking 'em out.There'll be plenty of old un's like us who would have one

I love the Grifter and what a great looking restoration job.
I had an old Chopper that a paper round customer gave me one Christmas. Somehow I managed to bend the frame, but undeterred I made what we used to call a scrambler. You took an old "racer", swapped the back wheel for one from a Chopper/Grifter/BMX (no back brake obviously) and turned the drop handlebars around to point upwards. It must have looked feckin stupid, but there were plenty of them around at the time.



I remember seeing a few Choppers with cowhorns, they looked so wrong!

i remember putting the forks and front wheel from my first mountain onto the frame of an old Ultra Burner with CW bars, it was mental to ride, i named it The Phantom Bellringer, those was thhe days