Forum menu
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17851190 ]Raleigh bought by Dutch firm.[/url]
Shame.
Until I was about 8 or 9, I didn't realise that other bike companies existed.
My first bikes were a Lion Trike, Tomahawk and a Grifter.
Still think the Raleigh Team Pro is my dream bike.
Still got two old ralieghs in the garage, great bikes, good marketing, but let down by poor shop sales.
A film Saturday night Sunday morning waas sfilmes at Raleigh Nottingham in the 60,s very atmospheric.
They did it to themselves.
Yes we all were brought up on them, but they were gimmicky, heavy, and not really that robust.
My first proper bike was a £200 Raleigh. Awful, awful bike but I had some good times on it, tyres made of plastic, cantilever brakes, jumpers for goalposts, isn't it? Marvellous.
I went for a tour round the Raleigh factory after I won a competition in a CDT lesson at school, this would have been in '92 or '93.
It was impressive in terms of scale, but the whole place had an air of doomed resignation. You know those really scratty, small independent garages that seem to be barely scraping by on ancient knackered kit? It was like that, only on a massive industrial-scale site of ancient mill buildings. The guy who showed us round didn't seem to care about bikes at all, whenever we asked a question about anything other than business stuff he didn't seem to know the answer. The welders and painters and mechanics all seemed to be good at their jobs, but they were just cogs in a badly-designed assembly line, mostly working on cheap tat.
There were obviously some people there trying to make things work - we saw some promising-looking titanium MTB prototypes that had been welded up on site, for example - but the overall impression I came away with was an old, flabby company staffed by people that didn't really care any more, and that was twenty years ago.
Shows the state of affairs when it was bought for 1/3rd of what Wiggle sold for.
My first bike that wasn't a hand me down was a Raleigh Scorpio racing bike. I loved that bike until I got a Peugeot racing bike with "carbolite 103 tubing and lungless frame 🙂
I always wanted a Grifter but we couldn't afford one and I was dead impressed by the Raleigh Bomber especially when some Scrote tried to mug me on one and he almost kept up with me on my Peugeot (see above) as I just got out of there ASAP.
An all too familiar tale of a British company failing to move with the times and going under.
Being asset stripped in the 90s didn't really help though did it?
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17861984 ]raleigh posters and the all steel bicycle[/url]
[url= http://www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/ ]more blasts from the past[/url]
[img] 
[/img]
nice 🙂
in my cellar there's a 1983 Raleigh road bike. I ride it a couple of times a week (it's permanently attached to my turbo trainer).
Before anyone says 'that's a shame', I have to point out that I rescued it from a skip.
It's still got its original tyres and brake blocks :-0
Just been working on my 1958 Raleigh Dawn Tourist. 🙂 Going to repaint it after half a century of use, bloody rubbish Raleigh stuff.
I've got a new Raleigh XC bike. Paintjob is fragile, to say the least. BB threads don't appear to be cut properly. Towards the centre on one side it gets difficult to screw it in, the other side is just difficult, full stop. Parts it was specced with, well the suppliers needed to improve their QC/designs. A fork that may be missing an internal part, plastic platforms where the axle doesn't fit straight (the pedal threads are blown now, after taking the crank with it) A crankset you can't fit a standard cranktool in to remove the retro (shakes head) bolts. A hub where to remove the cassette, you actually have to remove the open bearing axle and bearings first........