When I was a kid, riding the mean streets of a small country town on my awesome yellow bicycle, there was nothing cooler than spokey dokes. Brightly coloured bits of plastic that clipped onto the spokes of your bike, designed to rattle around in an unmistakable cacophony that might have been designed to simulate… I don’t know. A really sick calypso band, maybe? The girls could have their baskets and their tinsel-sprouting handlebars, I had fluro plastic noise makers!

Image from "Pushys" ebay store. Click for original.

click for original source

Spokey Dokes (sometimes also called spokey dokeys) are one of those outrageous 80’s icons that (as far as I can tell) had no purpose beyond just making an already good thing great. They were brightly coloured (sometimes glow-in-the-dark!), noisy, cheap, easy to install, and just brought joy to anyone lucky enough to attach them to their bike. The only bicycle accessory that is better, in my mind, was a trick my Dad showed me, where you stuck a playing card or piece of cardboard so that it clipped the spokes as you rode – it made a fantastic “vroom” sound that satisfactorily simulated the sound of a very small engined motorbike. Just awesome.

I haven’t seen spokey dokes in shops in a long while, though I admit I haven’t been looking for them. A quick Google search, though, reveals plenty available on ebay. I even found a Facebook page celebrating them!

Do you remember spokey dokes? What is your favourite bike accessory?

I am sharing today via Flog Your Blog Friday.