Raleigh, once a byword for British manufacturing excellence, is in exclusive talks with its Dutch rival. If the deal goes ahead it would be the latest time the Nottingham-based company has changed hands in recent years, after lurching from one slump to another.
Founded in 1890, it once made up to one million bicycles a year from its enormous factories in Nottingham, which boasted its own ballroom and 15 separate canteens, one for each seniority of worker.
However, the last bike to be made in Britain by Raleigh was back in 2002; all of its products are now made in Vietnam, Korea or Bangladesh, and it was unable to compete with cheap £100 models sold in the likes of Halfords and Tesco.
tinyurl.com/co6cu6x - Telegraph
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ballroom and 15 separate canteens, one for each seniority of worker.
Died of snobbery then ? See Empire of the Clouds for further details.
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I remember a time when Raleigh bicycles were made in Nottingham and the frames were guaranteed for life. How many bicycle manufacturers give that sort of guarantee nowadays?
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>> I remember a time when Raleigh bicycles were made in Nottingham and the frames were
>> guaranteed for life. How many bicycle manufacturers give that sort of guarantee nowadays?
>>
Trek, to name but one. The last Raleigh frame I bought was gauranteed for fifteen years, i never heard of them offering a lifetime warranty.
Raleigh failed because they had no clear direction and very few racing or club cylist would buy one of their frames, even going back to the late sixties when I first became involved in the sport. Their specialist racing frames were well regarded but because they rarely got involved with professional racing (Only two top teams - including their own - used their frames in the last half century IIRC) they never carried the prestige that other manufacturers did. It was a hard job trying to sell Raleigh branded bikes to serious cyclists when they were associated with rubbish like the Chopper.
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>> It was a hard job trying to sell Raleigh branded bikes
>> to serious cyclists when they were associated with rubbish like the Chopper.
>>
You are joking, right? The Chopper was a superb bike, and a real design icon. Just maybe not in the 'traditional' cycling world.
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>> You are joking, right? The Chopper was a superb bike, and a real design icon.
>> Just maybe not in the 'traditional' cycling world.
>>
The Chopper was a huge stinking pile of..........
My mate had one, I had a proper bike.
One day we swapped over - I ended up sans front teeth... cuts and grazes all over.
He ended up with a written off bike.
Far too light at the front, with NO stability.
Damn thing went into an unrecoverable tank slapper whilst I was trying to keep up with him.
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>> The Chopper was a huge stinking pile of..........
>> My mate had one, I had a proper bike.
>> One day we swapped over - I ended up sans front teeth... cuts and grazes
>> all over.
>> He ended up with a written off bike.
>>
>> Far too light at the front, with NO stability.
>> Damn thing went into an unrecoverable tank slapper whilst I was trying to keep up
>> with him.
SO let me see, he didn't end up with no front teeth when he had the chopper, but you did? Tank slapper?
Crap driver, nothing less.
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>> SO let me see, he didn't end up with no front teeth when he had
>> the chopper, but you did? Tank slapper?
>>
>> Crap driver, nothing less.
>>
He didn't know bikes could go more than 10mph till he rode mine.
I didn't know Choppers were carp over 15mph.......
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When we were kids, a couple of mates and I used to enjoy building bikes. One guy's dad had some welding gear and used to help us modify old frames and forks into what might very loosely be thought of as forerunners to today's mountain bikes. Without wishing to induce further narcolepsy, it mainly involved adapting the bikes to take smaller wheels and wider tyres and repositioning the brakes. Couple that with some straight tubing to make flat handlebars and Robert was your dad's brother.
Near where we lived was a river valley ( River Almond near Cramond for anyone who knows the area ) where we could get fairly seriously off road and attempt jumps etc. There was a narrow section of fast moving and seriously cold river tributary at one point with a naturally formed mud bank on one side which was some 6 feet higher than the ground level on the other side of the river which at that point would have been about 8-10 feet across. If you got enough speed up on one of our "tracker" bikes as we called them you could fairly easily leap the river onto a little island. The water wasn't all that deep, maybe 3 feet or so but was white with its force through the narrow gap and oh sooo cold !
Anyway, one day another school friend came with us for his first time down to the Almond on the only bike he had which even by then he was way too big for. It was a Raleigh Chopper.
I think you're ahead of me right?
It wasn't pretty, but God was it funny. He actually, totally inadvertantly, managed to perform a back flip without parting company with the bike before he hit the water...
Well, when you're 14, you don't have a lot of empathy with those who encounter misfortune do you?
:-)
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>>
>> You are joking, right? The Chopper was a superb bike, and a real design icon.
>> Just maybe not in the 'traditional' cycling world.
>>
The Chopper was a child's toy, nothing more.
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>> The Chopper was a child's toy, nothing more.
>>
No, that was the Chipper.
(a small version of the Cropper...Cra..... sorry Chopper.)
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>> >>
>> >> You are joking, right? The Chopper was a superb bike, and a real design
>> icon.
>> >> Just maybe not in the 'traditional' cycling world.
>> >>
>> The Chopper was a child's toy, nothing more.
The chopper was a design icon, it defined a whole generation.
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it defined a whole generation.
By their bruised nuts.
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>>
>> The chopper was a design icon, it defined a whole generation.
>>
So did platform shoes, tank tops and flares.
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>> >>
>> >> The chopper was a design icon, it defined a whole generation.
>> >>
>> So did platform shoes, tank tops and flares.
Damn i looked good in Flares and platforms.... Cost a fortune in permed hair tho.
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> Damn i looked good in Flares and platforms.... Cost a fortune in permed hair tho.
>>
>>
As good as these lads?
i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/emmapeelpants/Bay20City20Rollers.jpg
Snigger snigger.....
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No, thats a Jocks idea of fashion.
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The Scots, per head of population, have invented more useful things than most. In such a hive of creative industry, there were bound to be a few mistakes. None bigger perhaps than the aforementioned bunch of twonks !
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I think Releigh could have had a good niche selling cheap higher quality bicycles as they were in my day. Always double price the price of the Apollo and other bicycle shaped objects (BSOs) but still much cheaper than the highly regarded brands.
I have a Releigh, cost me around £180 and it is quite basic but has been very reliable apart from the bottom bracket failing at around 100 miles.
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"How many bicycle manufacturers give that sort of guarantee nowadays?"
Nearly all quality manufacturers I would think - Claude Butler do. I don't think Raleigh were ever considered quality bikes - they were what you cycled to the factory on. The Ford Focus of the cycling world. Their decline basically mirrored the rise of car ownership.
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Yup, my Claud Butler Cape Wrath mountain bike has a lifetime frame warranty.
Raleigh to my mind were always associated with kids bikes, and the kind of low end 'mountain bikes' that we tooled around on as teenagers in the late 80's and early 90's. They never had the finish, component quality or durability to compete with the alternative choices when you wanted a serious bike.
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>> I don't think Raleigh
>> were ever considered quality bikes - ..........
My experience is from the 1950s and in that era Raleigh were certainly more sophisticated and of better quality than other mainstream bicycles such as Phillips, Hercules, Sun, Triumph etc.
tinyurl.com/ylncuzb
Last edited by: L'escargot on Wed 4 Apr 12 at 19:02
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They were the Ford of the bicycle world. Better than some, I remember my father's "Hercules" frame giving way on his home from work and he had to walk 8 miles, but they were never a brand that cyclist would aspire to in the same way that people don't long to own a Ford Focus. They specialised in solid commuter bikes for the trip to work. As that market declined they made kid's bikes like the chopper and cheap "mountain'' bikes and the Moulton but never really went up market. Inevitably they went under. Failure to adapt to market conditions did for them in the end.
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>> ........... people don't long to own a Ford Focus.
I'm on my second Ford Focus and I long to own a third.
Last edited by: L'escargot on Wed 4 Apr 12 at 19:54
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"I'm on my second Ford Focus and I long to own a third"
I suppose statistically there would have to be someone who did.
Actually I had a Mk1 Focus and a Raleigh Wayfarer bike and they were both good basic bread and butter machines for everyday use. People still want cars to drive to work. Unfortunately few want bikes like Raleigh made.
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>> They were the Ford of the bicycle world. Better than some, I remember my father's
>> "Hercules" frame giving way on his home from work and he had to walk 8
>> miles, but they were never a brand that cyclist would aspire to in the same
>> way that people don't long to own a Ford Focus. They specialised in solid commuter
>> bikes for the trip to work.
Depending on when your father's Hercules was built, it could well have been a Raleigh product. Hercules sold out to Tube Investments (owners of Reynolds Tubing amongst others) in 1946; the same group acquired Raleigh in 1960.
The demise of Raleigh affected Nottingham (my home city) in much the same way as the demise of British Leyland affected Birmingham.
I agree with your asessment though. Raleigh traded very much on their reputation for solid but mundane bicycles, although the Chopper and other associated childrens' bikes was a very important part of their business and did much to re-invent the brand.
Last edited by: Harleyman on Wed 4 Apr 12 at 21:53
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"Hercules sold out to Tube Investments (owners of Reynolds Tubing amongst others) in 1946; the same group acquired Raleigh in 1960."
Would have been a few year's before that. My father finally ditched the bike and purchased an Austin A35 in 1959
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>> T I remember my father's
>> "Hercules" frame giving way on his home from work and he had to walk 8
>> miles,
Hercules sponsored the first British team to ride the Tour de France in 1955. The frames were so poor that the team had their race frames made in Italy and resprayed to look like genuine Hercules models.
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>> Raleigh, once a byword for British manufacturing excellence, .........
I couldn't have put it better myself.
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As a kid in the late 70's and through the 80's, they were the bikes to have. The Chopper, Grifter and the various incarnations of the Burner were all highly sought after. I remember the 'Mustang' budget all terrain bike was also very popular. There must have been 20 of them regularly parked up in our school bike sheds alone.
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I had said, Raleigh, the biking equivalent of British Leyland, a classic example of outdated faded british manufacturing.
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The Chopper range were the ideal "gateway" purchase, trendy, modern and cool - they never capitalized on that, if it had been a Japanese firm it would have had equally as cool bikes waiting for the kids as they grew into adults.
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Exactly it mirrors BL almost exactly.
manufacturing has a basic set of rules. You make things that people want, at a price they can pay, which is more than you make them for.
Get any of those things wrong, for what ever reason, and you are toast. The problem for all of these old established British manufacturing firms was the end of a protected market.
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A shame to see Raleigh go a famous name.Batavus Sparta the good quality bicycles in the Netherlands.Keep the people in a job and expand the company . If the Hollander keeps his word they have a good future.
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>> The Chopper range were the ideal "gateway" purchase, trendy, modern and cool - they never
>> capitalized on that, if it had been a Japanese firm it would have had equally
>> as cool bikes waiting for the kids as they grew into adults.
I think that sums it up pretty well. Kids of my generation (and earlier) thought Raleigh bikes were brilliant. Once we grew up and had a bit more money to spend on something a little more special, they had nothing worth considering.
The kids bikes were completely indestructible. We gave various Choppers, Burners and Grifters horrendous abuse over the years as kids, and I don't ever recall one breaking. The Burner in particular was a seriously tough BMX.
Last edited by: DP on Thu 5 Apr 12 at 16:51
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>>>and 15 separate canteens, one for each seniority of worker.
Lesson one in how to create a festering "them and us" attitude in the workforce!
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Raleigh, Rudge and Humber were all made by Raleigh I think in the fifties when I were a nipper and fancied a nice new bike with coachlines and an oilbath chain case, as well as a little streamlined bullet on the front point of the front mudguard. The bikes were quite similar but had detail differences and were in different colours. Raleigh were green I think, Rudge a nice maroon and Humber blue, but I could have got them mixed up. The red and gold coachlines were nice too. It was a very different age. Aspirations and aesthetics very different. Almost everyone was poor then. Almost everyone is rich now by comparison.
My adolescent bike was a bitza. Its frame was a bit tall for me when I got it and it had rod brakes and unglamorous handlebars. I got it some white plastic sports mudguards and stuck them on, and saved for a Sturmey-Archer four speed hub. They say though that derailleur systems are more efficient. The Sturmey-Archer four speed hub wasn't all that good. It had very fine adjustment and could slip.
I didn't take it to university. Bikes there had short brutal lives and were stolen all the time.
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My sister took me on the back of her bike,she had to visit he doctor.I trapped my legs in the spokes I was five.It was me who was seen by he doctor.Accidents will happen.>;)
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Been vacationing so sorry to comment on an old thread....
I had a lovely Raleigh Randonneur before my move abroad, I bought it from eBay as a restoration project, hand built in the late 1990s by their former special products division in Nottingham. A truly lovely bike: Reynolds 531ST frame, Mavic wheels, Stronglight chainset, Brookes saddle and more. It was well used when I bought it (knackered) but still the nicest bike I've ever ridden. Designed to compete with the (arguably inferior) Dawes Galaxy I don't think it ever made Raleigh any money. I sold it (for several multiples of the cost of a new Halfords bike) before my move because it deserved a good home and regular use. I miss it....
However, the economic realities for Raleigh as a UK manufacturer apply equally to so many industries these days, I suspect Vauxhall will be the next example in the motor industry. In the end the consumer wants cheaper prices and this means manufacturing has to move, is it too late for a 'buy British' campaign or is that passe ?
I would add that if you're in the market for a new bicycle and prepared to pay 'a bit more' you can get a hand built British bicycle tailor-made for a suprisingly small premium over the mass-produced (or foreign produced) higher end offerings from Dawes and their ilk. I also understand that Dawes no longer build their frames in Birmingham either....
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>> Raleigh, once a byword for British manufacturing excellence, is in exclusive talks with its Dutch rival.
Sold
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17851190
Raleigh Cycle, one of the best-known and oldest bicycle makers in the UK, has been bought by Dutch rival Accell for $100m (£62m).
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Raleigh Bikes - Better get your clogs on - R.P.