Raleigh MTBs question.

xerxes

Old School Grand Master
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I've been seeing a lot of nice Raleigh MTBs on the forum, Dynatechs etc. When I bought my first MTB back in 1990 Raleigh were completely off the radar and largely ignored in favour other manufacturers, Marin, Kona, Muddy Fox and Orange seemed to be very popular.

I had a bit of a hiatus from cycling from about 1992 through to about 2005, while I was mucking about doing other stuff, so I wasn't paying much attention to what was going on in the bicycle world. When I returned everything was made of aluminium and had bouncy bits at one or both ends and bore little resemblance to the bikes of the early 90s.

So when did Raleigh get back "back on board" and start making nice stuff? Raleigh aren't much in evidence now, so was it too little too late?
 
The thing with Raleigh is that they aren't really one company - at least not in the way that applies to most manufacturors. In the early 90s there were your bog standard British Raleighs, but then there also Technium (American I think), and Dynatech (British I think) which (I think) later morphed into M-Trax.

Later 'decent' Raleighs seem to be RSP but then Raleigh always did have a Special Products Division.

So while until a few years ago I thought Raleigh were
pretty crap low end stuff they've always had decent high end stuff but in such smaller numbers that it could easily slip under the radar
 
Interesting one this. More knowledgable people than me will I am sure contribute, but in the late 80s and early 90s, I thought Raleigh made some great stuff, and had a good team too. At some point, not sure when or why, you could only get really rubbish Raleigh bikes and it seemed only via halfords. Not sure they have ever recovered. I would be interested to now if they still exist in the higher end bike category, because even if not, it should be possible to resurrect them now, in the age where biking is now the new black and everyone is looking to buy and ride a bike, and nt just any old tat either, which brings me neatly back to Raleigh, as that's where I see them now.
 
You see, you learn something every day, and today's lesson is that Raleigh are still, or at least were when those frames were current, building higher end stuff!
 
They still make fairly high-end (£2500) road bikes but sadly their MTB range is barely above BSO territory these days (at least in the UK, the most expensive one is less than £400).

They also make a modern version of the Burner for any BMXers that might be lurking - for £260 ;)
 
By the time they had any decent, reliable mtbs in the range the imported brands had basically stitched up the market.
They tried to recover that with factory and pro race teams, but too little, too late. :(

They just missed the boat on mtbs.
Unfortunately that screwed up cash flow, sales and so on. So everything suffered.

Then I had to pay for my own spares. :cry:
 
Mid to late 90s Max Cromo range of MTBs was good. Superb frames, well designed, neatly welded, with a decent grade of butted 4130 throughout (not just the main triangle or even just downtube as Diamond Back and Saracen were wont to do), with some lovely deep powder coat finishes. Deeply regret selling mine, but divorce meant I had to downsize to a 2 bed cottage and had no room for more than 3 bikes (and one of those was under the bed with the front wheel and pedals removed!).

If he nice chap that bought my beautiful purple '97 large framed Max Cromo III from me on eBay about 5 years ago I would gladly buy it back.
 
Raleigh are now a Dutch owned company, and do make some modern plastic tat as do most manufacturers, the main problem with Raleigh is one of perception. In the late 80's they made the Maverick range which to all intents and purposes was every bit as good as Dawes ET AL, with even a GO'D designed Maverick 18 Pro getting seriously into Saracen and Overbury's territory.

Then in the early 90's the Off road series came out, Summit,Peak,Apex all good bikes though some were blighted by breakages. Then appeared the New kids on the block, Orange, Pace, Kona became affordable and cool, suddenly Raleigh appeared stodgy and old fashioned to some and alas I think they never quite regained their kudos.

This was only part of the problem though, it was also a lot to do with how many brands were available and a watering down of traditional brands Falcon, Dawes, Holdsworth, Elswick, and Claude Butler all amalgamated under one banner, Raleigh bought out BSA, and re-released Carlton, Halford bought out the Carrera brand too. Once all this happened things went mad American, Japanese, Canadian brands flooded the market and the genie was out of the bottle, really Raleigh were lucky to last as long as they did ;)
 
The early stuff as mentioned consisted of Mavericks at various levels and then in about 1988 the special products division started producing the lightweight range. These were handbuilt 531 and later 653 frames that are a nice ride and survived until about 1991 with the Dynatechs coming along in 1990 to first supplement the range and then replace them. M-Trax later took on the high end mantle in about 1994/5 and that's about my knowledge.
On the low end kit after the Mavericks a cooking range came out in about 1988 that started with the Mustang and carried on all the way up to the Montage and Mirage and these carried on like this until about 1991 when the Offroad K2's came along replacing the 501's (Montage, Mirage and Moonrun).
I have a bit of an affinity to the brand as a lot of people do as a 1988 Maverick GT was my first MTB, this made me want the team replica 531 bike I currently have.
You can vote for my 531 Team in BOTM this month too ;)

Carl.
 
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