How bad is Raleigh ?

[col]

Im curious about what seems to be a negative feeling to Raleigh by some? Now just becoming the proud owner of a royal tourer it does make me think. My new bike is very comfortable the gears change well and everything is fine and dandy as far as I can tell. So how bad can raleigh actually be?
Or is there something Im missing?

 

[rich p]

You've got a new bike? I hadn't heard

 

[Dave5N]

Not bad, but not a classy brand to the bike snobs.

 

[col]

You've got a new bike? I hadn't heard

There you go, well its two now by pure chance

http://www.cyclechat.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=648908#post648908

http://www.cyclechat.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=30855

 

[TWBNK]

I have a raleigh and am proud of it

 

[col]

I have a raleigh and am proud of it

What do you have? Any pics?

 

[Chuffy]

I thought they'd been having a bit of a renaissance in recent years, wot with their new range of road bikes.

 

[Over The Hill]

I think it is because they are associated with kids bikes they have a reputation as being a bit of a toy bike.

If you had one at the age of 10 would you still want one as an adult?

If Disney made a car would you buy it? It is not really a matter of if it is good or not.

 

[Mr Pig]

The last Raleigh I owned was a MkII Chopper!

 

[col]

So it would seem OTH that some percieve them from the early days? my memory is of my scorpio, which at the time was a great bike I felt.

Chuffy, I think mine has last years deal going on, but Im still impressed with it, also its the first time Iv ever used sti shifters, sora I think, and are a bit of a revelation to me.

Mr Pig, I had one of those too.

 

[gbb]

About 6 years ago i brought a Chimera roadbike, slightly heavy steel frame, Sora equipped...and its done about 6000 miles. Still on the original wheels, true as the day i brought it, everything still works...nothing wrong with it at all.
The only thing ive ever had to do was sight adjustments to the gears, replace brake cables and adjust the hubs a couple of times.
Gonna advertise it soon...too many bikes and i havnt rode it since eary last year.
I think if you can get one equipped with Sora, you cant go wrong for the money.

 

[col]

About 6 years ago i brought a Chimera roadbike, slightly heavy steel frame, Sora equipped...and its done about 6000 miles. Still on the original wheels, true as the day i brought it, everything still works...nothing wrong with it at all.
The only thing ive ever had to do was sight adjustments to the gears, replace brake cables and adjust the hubs a couple of times.
Gonna advertise it soon...too many bikes and i havnt rode it since eary last year.
I think if you can get one equipped with Sora, you cant go wrong for the money.

Thats good news for me eh. I was impressed how it came packed and both wheels were perfectly true. So my sora gear levers are very reliable too? great stuff, as I know nowt about these newer type things

 

[Keith Oates]

I also have the same understanding as Chuffy that they have now got some good bikes again. My first road bike was a second hand Raleigh (can't remember the model name) but I did a lot of miles on it without any problems!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[John the Monkey]

Depends on the bike really - some of the Airlite road bike series have had very positive reviews indeed. (I think the carbon one is thought to be good VFM, whereas some of the "lower" models in the range don't stack up quite as well against their competitors - C+ did some reviews recently).

For anyone interested, there's a good history of Raleigh here.

When I was a kid, my dream bike was a Raleigh, either the Banana, or the Kelloggs Pro-Tour, as I recall. My first bikes were all Raleighs too (Striker, Bomber, then my Dad's old Pioneer Elite...)

 

[spandex]

The thing with Raleigh was that they had a really big name all most a house hold name. But they in the late 80's (I think) tried to cut there costs by getting things made cheaper instead of in house and cheaper kit... At the same time the Bike industry (the A team) had a big push in upping the ante with the frames and the level of kit that was going on the top 6 brands. All this left Raleigh hi and dry which made them look cheap. Now Raleigh have spent loads of time and money on tring to get there name back and looking at some of there bikes over the last year or so they are doing a good job but thay still have a long way to go to get there name back.