Raleigh losses.

[NWisGooderest!]

This is just a small example of Raleigh blowing it over here in the states.
Kent Washington is the location of their US distribution. Lots of prototypes are proposed for import and not all of them makes the cut.
Enter the Raleigh Webster.
Steel frame, touring but with massive tire clearance. Think Salsa Fargo but with a far better price. Will the market buy this? Nope? - what a misjudgment on that one.
They were kicking ass with Brian Sally in charge of marketing. Fired him and then they crapped the bed. So many larger factors but it’s really a bunch of smaller kerfuffles that is helping their fall from grace.

 

[bikeworkshop]

I think raleigh held on to some Kudos in the states after their credibility had been shredded by bso mtbs and car part showroom and catalogue sales in the uk

 

[bagpuss]

Does Raleigh USA have any connection with Raleigh UK other than the brand name ?

 

[Rapparee87]

It's the rise of the MAMIL in the last 20 years. Cycling became the new golf. Money was no object for bikes and kit. Convincing luxury brands and hedge funds to buy into it. The gravy train would never end.

Well it has. A bicycle shouldn't cost as much as a car. It used to be that people who couldn't afford to drive a car rode a bike - now it's the reverse!

 

[d8mok]

It's the rise of the MAMIL in the last 20 years. Cycling became the new golf. Money was no object for bikes and kit. Convincing luxury brands and hedge funds to buy into it. The gravy train would never end.

Well it has. A bicycle shouldn't cost as much as a car. It used to be that people who couldn't afford to drive a car rode a bike - now it's the reverse!

Cheapest new car in the UK is £13795. You can pretty much buy anything bike related for that.

I’m not saying bikes aren’t ridiculous in price but as is everything else now.

You can buy a new dogma f with dura ace for £10k which is the pinnacle of bike tech. How much would a car of the same level cost ? 200-300k?

 

[sjcprojects]

By the time road cycling became 'fashionable' again, when British riders started actually winning things, Raleigh were already deeply unfashionable. So I don't think the money-is-no-object crowd can be blamed for that.

 

[bikeworkshop]

Also the newbies streaming into cycling didn't want historical heritage,
but the scientific futurism embodied by mis-spelled words and matt Black everything

 

[doctor-bond]

I’m not convinced that there was a golden age for bike makers to compare to: so, for the cycling ‘industry’, now is just like all other times but a bit different.

E.g the classic lightweights/atelier makers era was a cut throat patchwork of people making ends meet and frequently going bust while leaving behind tears and some gems.

The post war massive-industrial-output-aligned-with-national-interests era was a job creation excercise responsible for some of the worst BSOs ever along with a chunk of golden classics.

The globalisation-shipping era spat out lots of bikes that folk on here love, but was often hideous for the people involved in the business; the various global shocks in this era (the Yen dollar crisis through to Covid) have led to more ups and downs in this system than @legrandefromage has owned retro classics … lots of winners and losers.

We’re in a post covid, low shipping, super choice era where you can (sometimes) get hold of any sort of bike you could possibly conceive of for any budget, but supply is sporadic and the idea of like for like replacemt parts or spares is a fantasy.

Manufacturing now is intrinsically easier (tooling, tech, iteration, entrepreneurial innovation & design aid) but hard to do in an sustainable, economically/marketably viable way, so the gaps in demand will get filled, but patchily.

Raleigh is as defunct as Simca, Lada, Kodak, Humber (as previously noted); hard to care when there are so many excellent other options out there.

(Oh, and P5 Rover FTW )

 

[Canuk]

When I started cycling it was in the mid eighties, I got a Carlton brand new for £195, Reynolds 531 for about 2/3rds of my apprentice months wages. A really top end 753 cost about 600. That would be a month's wages for my dad.

Entry level, low end group carbon now costs a month's wages. And the nails are in the coffin for those selling bikes 3-5k. My lbs is stuffed to the gunnels with them, and they're not for shifting. Perhaps the game is up?

I really can't see happy times ahead for bike sellers and bike producers. There's probably a real gap in the market now for a 'budget' manufacturer to step in with a modestly priced carbon/gravel/disc bike and clean up

My money is on the Chinese. When they start flooding the market with cheap, reasonable specced electric disc road bikes, I'm in!

 

[highlandsflyer]

P5 looked better. The non coupe version

Yes. Glad my folks moved onto Landies after theirs.