Cool Wall - Raleigh
- Thread starter john
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DeletedUser006
Old School Grand Master
Dad, I have to disagree with you 
Raleighs are cool and always will be, Ok there was some right old mass produced tosh that they brought out but the official Race team bikes, RSP's and Dyna Techs were very nice and still are which brings me to my next....................................... when was the last time you looked in bike shed or bike lockup at a station or work ? there will nearly always be an old raleigh MTB still being ridden daily ....... now that has to be cool
Raleighs are cool and always will be, Ok there was some right old mass produced tosh that they brought out but the official Race team bikes, RSP's and Dyna Techs were very nice and still are which brings me to my next....................................... when was the last time you looked in bike shed or bike lockup at a station or work ? there will nearly always be an old raleigh MTB still being ridden daily ....... now that has to be cool
velocitizen
Retrobike Rider
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velomaniac
MacRetro Rider
I love Raleighs, without them many a biking concept would have been beyond the purse strings of most punters. 1st and 2nd mtb I ever rode in 85 and 89 repectively were Raleighs, I thought them both fantastic fun.
However you cannot call them cool, they're even more workmanlike and dull than GT's. Sure there is the odd classic gem but the sum of the whole was alot of steel tonnage that is sitting in sheds across the UK. Should all the unridden Raleighs be collected, melted down and dumped onto the worldwide steel market the bottom would fall out of said market. Bums on seats does not equate to cool :roll:
However you cannot call them cool, they're even more workmanlike and dull than GT's. Sure there is the odd classic gem but the sum of the whole was alot of steel tonnage that is sitting in sheds across the UK. Should all the unridden Raleighs be collected, melted down and dumped onto the worldwide steel market the bottom would fall out of said market. Bums on seats does not equate to cool :roll:
Totally uncool and will never be anything else.
The actual "Raleigh" factory never made a single decent bike.
Some, like the Chopper and Grifter were very sought after BITD, but they were very low-tech stuff, made from scaffolding tubes (or similar). And made for kids - Not actually high quality bikes in any way.
The Burners had hideous geometry and are a perfect example of what Raleigh did best, which was to badly mis-interpret trends and somehow manage to get all the important details, styling and performance elements totally wrong (like the Burners and the Bomber etc.).
The few good bikes with the Raleigh name were never what you could call genuine Raleigh production models:
* Top end road and track frames by GoD (Gerald O'Donovan) at the Ilkeston custom frame-shop. The "T.I.-Raleigh" livery frames I've seen had the GoD sticker. Not sure you could buy one of that quality from Raleigh (??).
* Again, whatever frames were supplied to Raleigh's Team Banana or Super-U riders may have been made FOR Raleigh, but I doubt Raleigh themselves ever made or sold production frames which were that good. In particular, when Laurent Fignon raced for Raleigh/Super-U, he used Cyfac frames with a Raleigh paint job.
* Top end Aero Burner/ Pro Burner BMX frames were all from Japan (Tange / Rhino?)
* Ti and 853 steel road and Dyna Tech MTB frames were from the RSP division, only made in small numbers. And some of them were sourced from dodgy Russian Ti.
* Tomac's rebadged "Raleigh USA" frames (made by Merlin and Litespeed?)
There have been small numbers of great bikes with a "Raleigh" logo on (usually made elsewhere and re-badged), but the vast majority of what they actually produced themselves was nasty crap.
Raleigh has a sad story of poor design, zero market-awareness, bad management and lack of investment.
If Raleigh makes it onto the Cool Wall you might as well add Murray, Puch and any old Wal-Mart brand you care to name.
[/rant]
The actual "Raleigh" factory never made a single decent bike.
Some, like the Chopper and Grifter were very sought after BITD, but they were very low-tech stuff, made from scaffolding tubes (or similar). And made for kids - Not actually high quality bikes in any way.
The Burners had hideous geometry and are a perfect example of what Raleigh did best, which was to badly mis-interpret trends and somehow manage to get all the important details, styling and performance elements totally wrong (like the Burners and the Bomber etc.).
The few good bikes with the Raleigh name were never what you could call genuine Raleigh production models:
* Top end road and track frames by GoD (Gerald O'Donovan) at the Ilkeston custom frame-shop. The "T.I.-Raleigh" livery frames I've seen had the GoD sticker. Not sure you could buy one of that quality from Raleigh (??).
* Again, whatever frames were supplied to Raleigh's Team Banana or Super-U riders may have been made FOR Raleigh, but I doubt Raleigh themselves ever made or sold production frames which were that good. In particular, when Laurent Fignon raced for Raleigh/Super-U, he used Cyfac frames with a Raleigh paint job.
* Top end Aero Burner/ Pro Burner BMX frames were all from Japan (Tange / Rhino?)
* Ti and 853 steel road and Dyna Tech MTB frames were from the RSP division, only made in small numbers. And some of them were sourced from dodgy Russian Ti.
* Tomac's rebadged "Raleigh USA" frames (made by Merlin and Litespeed?)
There have been small numbers of great bikes with a "Raleigh" logo on (usually made elsewhere and re-badged), but the vast majority of what they actually produced themselves was nasty crap.
Raleigh has a sad story of poor design, zero market-awareness, bad management and lack of investment.
If Raleigh makes it onto the Cool Wall you might as well add Murray, Puch and any old Wal-Mart brand you care to name.
[/rant]
