Cool Wall - Raleigh

[one-eyed_jim]

The Chopper is often cited as evidence of Raleigh's coolness, but that is a European perspective.

...

Don't take my word for it though, do a google image search for 'Schwinn Orange Krate' or 'Schwinn
Pea Picker' and you'll see some really classic, really cool bikes.

See, I've never thought any of those bikes were cool. They were bikes for sitting on at the end of the road, not for riding anywhere. You might as well buy a deckchair.

The Grifter was the bike the cool kids had.

 

[Neil G]

What's lust got to do with it?

Nobody's ever lusted after a VW beetle or a Morris Minor. Are they cool? In the right context, certainly. A Raleigh Twenty is cool in a way that has nothing to do with lust.

I'm not arguing that Raleigh didn't make a lot of very uncool machines, particularly in the later years, but cool per se needn't have anything to do with the perceived desirability of the object. Sometimes quite the reverse.

A Grifter or a Twenty (being just what it set out to be, and no more) is cool in a way that a Max CroMo (trying hard to appear to be something it wasn't) never could be.

Now the RSW16 is a problem bike for me, because it represents part of the uncool side of Raleigh - the ugly business practices post-war that saw countless competitors bought up and closed down. The RSW was a Moulton competitor to sell cheaply to people who didn't understand what a Moulton was about. The end result was the sale of the Moulton brand to Raleigh, paradoxically a brief period where the Mk3 Moulton had far superior build quality to the previous versions, and then the complete suppression of the brand when Raleigh realised they could make more profit per unit selling RSW's and Twenties. That's not cool.

But overall, I'm still voting cool.

What we lust after are our own perceptions of what is cool

Personally I think Raleigh (including their BMXs) were poop. Look at what Chris Moeller & S&M did in the BMX world and you'll see they actually made BMX cool and also made bikes that didn't break which is nice

 

[carlton dyna-tech]

I grew-up with Raleighs, starting with an orange Mk1 Chopper (wish I'd kept THAT!!), then a Raleigh Transit 3-speed, a Sprite Export 5-speed, Raleigh Royal Tourer, Raleigh Classic Tourer, Raleigh Gran Sport, Raleigh (SPD, Ilkeston) Super Maverick MTB.

I still own a 1989 Raleigh (SPD) Randonneur (restored this year), a 1990 Dyna-Tech 2070 MTB in Team Colours and (frame acquired this year) a 1992 Dyna-Tech MT5 (same frame material as Sinnett 177s Team Dyna-Tech)....so, for me, COOL (but not-so sure about the newer-stuff).

 

[hamster]

It's a bit like Ford. Do the RS1800, Sierra Cosworth and Lotus Cortina make up for the Orion, Mk3 Cortina and 1.3 Capri?

Dunno. But definitely not as cool as Alfa.

 

[Neil]

It's a bit like Ford. Do the RS1800, Sierra Cosworth and Lotus Cortina make up for the Orion, Mk3 Cortina and 1.3 Capri?

Good analogy (Ford, that is) - I was thinking the same myself.

 

[one-eyed_jim]

What we lust after are our own perceptions of what is cool

This is getting complicated.

If you mean that we lust after the things that we perceive to be cool, that's clearly false. I perceive the Fonz to be cool. I've never lusted after the Fonz. The coolness-lust equation is broken. This thread is about cool, not about lust. Lust is heat. Lust is fire. Cool is Snowy Mountain streamwater. Cool is Long Island iced tea.

If you really mean that we lust after our own perceptions - not that we lust after objects we percieve to exist - I don't even know where to begin. That's a metaphysical argument.

 

[mechagouki]

So just to be clear Jim, you're saying this:

is cooler than this:

 

[chaser]

How many manufacturers do you know who made a bonded frame using as many different materials....?

Aluminium
Titanium
Steel
MMC

That was the MT5 / team bikes

And....

David Baker and John Tomac rode Raleigh.

 

[one-eyed_jim]

So just to be clear Jim, you're saying this:

...

is cooler than this:

That's exactly what I'm saying.

(a) is a bike. (b) is a deckchair on wheels.

Nice chrome. Nice colour. Not cool.

 

[chaser]

yeah, you could run over the Grifter with a truck and it would still come back for more!

That orange thing wouldn't last 5 mins doing brick and plank jumps around the estate

Chaser... and yes, I did have a grifter