Something for the Raleigh fans

[3wheeler7]

Nottingham City Centre is DEAD and for most living outside of the city centre the general view is, why would anyone want to travel into the city centre...

As a born and bred Nottinghamian I couldn't agree more. I used to spend a lot of time in the city centre in the 70s to the 90s and it was a vibrant and busy place to go - both for nightlife and shopping.
I've recently had cause to visit the city centre on a couple of occasions in daylight and have remarked to friends on how run down , scruffy and unwelcoming it is, rip off car parking (if you can find any) with closed down shops it's like walking through an industrial wasteland in parts -such a shame.
I suppose many UK city centres have suffered the same fate since the advent of out of town retail parks.
I'll still visit the Raleigh Experience though - parking permitting - but I also don't think it will survive long in that location.

 

[3wheeler7]

Happened to be in Nottingham city again this morning so I dropped in at the Raleigh experience centre.
Had a good chat with Issac who gave me a run down of what they are doing -trying to raise awareness of the brand, history and availability of models etc
Of more interest to me was the old models on display particularly the 1980 SBDU Team bike. It's owned by Raleigh and features on their
website History page. I never asked them nor took a photo but when I got home I wondered if it was Joops actual TdF winning bike.
So I did a bit of Googling - like you do - and found a photo on Flickr of the same bike at a memorial exhibition in Amsterdam in 2010 with Joop in attendance next to it. Further searching found a post stating that the bike used to be on display in a local pub in Ilkeston during the 1980s.
I may be way off the mark here but it certainly seems plausible that Raleigh still own one of Joops TdF winning bikes.
I'll call in again and ask them if I can have a good look at it and get the frame number from it - may be even give it a spin around the shop!

 

[vcballbat]

Happened to be in Nottingham city again this morning so I dropped in at the Raleigh experience centre.
Had a good chat with Issac who gave me a run down of what they are doing -trying to raise awareness of the brand, history and availability of models etc
Of more interest to me was the old models on display particularly the 1980 SBDU Team bike. It's owned by Raleigh and features on their
website History page. I never asked them nor took a photo but when I got home I wondered if it was Joops actual TdF winning bike.
So I did a bit of Googling - like you do - and found a photo on Flickr of the same bike at a memorial exhibition in Amsterdam in 2010 with Joop in attendance next to it. Further searching found a post stating that the bike used to be on display in a local pub in Ilkeston during the 1980s.
I may be way off the mark here but it certainly seems plausible that Raleigh still own one of Joops TdF winning bikes.
I'll call in again and ask them if I can have a good look at it and get the frame number from it - may be even give it a spin around the shop!

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I believe that this is the same bike at the Raleigh Experience, it's not the same bike number 11 Joop's looking at.

 

[3wheeler7]

You could be right, another visit to the Raleigh shop may confirm either way, what I do know is that both the pictures in my post are of the same bike - the first is taken from Raleighs website.
The guy in the Rutland Water video appears to infer that the bike he has there was the TdF winner - but as far as I can tell it isn't.

Apparently Raleigh still have a large collection of historic bikes and their intention is that more will be put on show. When I asked if they still owned the Reg Harris' race bike which is (was) in Wollaton Park Industrial Museum (pictured upthread) the answer was that it more than likely did still belong to them but was on loan to the museum. I'll try and get to speak to someone with more knowledge of the bikes they have.
I understand that when Reg came out of retirement in 1974 Raleigh had two of his old bikes in storage - one was heavily updated for him to compete on (although he had to request his old handlebars back from Cliff Smith!) and the other one is in the museum. Anyone know what happened to his 1974/75 race bike?

 

[3wheeler7]

Dropped in at the Raleigh shop again today and took a few pics of the SBDU bike there, looks like vcballbat is correct - it is the same bike as featured in the Rutland Cycling video, the degradation to the 753 sticker proves it, well done that man! It appears to be SB4053.

Apparently Raleigh are in the process of calling back all their historic bikes that are on loan and intend to manage them in-house, whether that means we'll see more of them ...............?

 

[Mr_Mojo]

One to visit next time I’m in Nottingham