Raleigh Documentary on BBC 4 Tonight (5/10)

General cycling advice ( NOT technical ! )
simonhill
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Joined: 13 Jan 2007, 11:28am
Location: Essex

Raleigh Documentary on BBC 4 Tonight (5/10)

Post by simonhill »

Just seen this in the schedule.

BBC 4 at 23:10. It's called, Pedalling Dreams, The Raleigh Story.

Probably a repeat, but should be interesting.
Oldjohnw
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Location: South Warwickshire

Re: Raleigh Documentary on BBC 4 Tonight (5/10)

Post by Oldjohnw »

Ity been on a number of times. Well worth watching: by virtue of studying Raleigh it really is a history of bicycles and not just Raleigh.
John
mercalia
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Re: Raleigh Documentary on BBC 4 Tonight (5/10)

Post by mercalia »

2 days 11 hours Lands End to John O'Groats. What is the record now ( for women or men)
Jdsk
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Re: Raleigh Documentary on BBC 4 Tonight (5/10)

Post by Jdsk »

41h 4m 22s.

Jonathan
greyingbeard
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Re: Raleigh Documentary on BBC 4 Tonight (5/10)

Post by greyingbeard »

Older Raleigh factory films

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w9Hr16V2Ig


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaxRQh03BOw

what a horrible Dickensian place the old factory was. Glad I dont have to work there.
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cyclemad
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Re: Raleigh Documentary on BBC 4 Tonight (5/10)

Post by cyclemad »

just watched it....sad to seethe demise of a once great company..The narrator summed it up about the company ( and most UK companies of the era)

''QUALITY OVER QUANTITY'' - Not able to keep up with the foreign mass produced cycles.


Forgot to record the program so going to try and find it on iplayer. :)
Brucey
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Joined: 4 Jan 2012, 6:25pm

Re: Raleigh Documentary on BBC 4 Tonight (5/10)

Post by Brucey »

Raleigh basically stood no chance in a labour intensive business, not when they were competing with low wage economies in other places. As it was they had a standing order to reduce manufacturing costs by 10% a year or something. Inevitably quality suffered.

A little story not widely known: They carried on making their own 26tpi headsets and bottom brackets for a long time, and as part of T.I. group they had access to (or were forced to use, I have never been sure which) their group research facilities. Raleigh -somehow or other- ended up using a different process for hardening BB cups and headset parts which had been developed by their group research facilities. It was a cheaper process but in fact was quite unsuitable for the purpose. Those bottom brackets and headsets literally just fell apart with weeks if you actually rode the bike.

In the meantime at the Raleigh factory it was very 'them and us'; they had a very swanky restaurant for the manager/visitors (complete with gold ashtrays amongst other things), and Raleigh 'five star dealers' were taken on expensive jollies. In the meantime they were missing the boat -or at least arriving late to the party- with fairly major market changes, the workforce was demotivated, and the basic engineering was suffering. Arguably it was a miracle they lasted as long as they did.

Raleigh's sheer size basically forced them to compete in the volume sector of the market; had the parts of the business that made the quality stuff been entirely separate, and not joined at the hip, those parts might perhaps still be going today.

All a bit sad, but change is inevitable I suppose.

cheers
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tangled Metal
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Re: Raleigh Documentary on BBC 4 Tonight (5/10)

Post by Tangled Metal »

cyclemad wrote:just watched it....sad to seethe demise of a once great company..The narrator summed it up about the company ( and most UK companies of the era)

''QUALITY OVER QUANTITY'' - Not able to keep up with the foreign mass produced cycles.


Forgot to record the program so going to try and find it on iplayer. :)

Except cars, quality was only worse in America at the time I believe. Probably other UK companies and sectors too. Rosy glasses work very well with a red outlook in life I think! :lol:

Btw did they make much of industrial relations at the factory? The only bit I watched just mentioned low morale. Is that a euphemism for industrial action? Then the flying pickets guy.

Once great? When cycling was the main transport for the working man and settling plain, black bikes were what they bought perhaps. Then the design and fashion icon that was the chopper. What a rubbish bike to actually ride! At the time I think I got a Raleigh kids sports bike. 5 speed, drop bars and probably fulp sized wheels. I was 9 and was expected to grow into it. When I got it I could barely ride it.

I was 17 when I replaced it. It's coloured my outlook on cycling ever since. If you're leisure riding on the road get a road bike. If you're not buy the bike for your needs. At I time most lads my age started getting MTBs I kept with road bike.

Local shop to us was a Raleigh main dealer for ever. It's why it was in decline, possibly held up by the car factors side of the business. It was however significant enough in the Raleigh dealers network for the owner to get one of the centenary, golden road bikes given to him. Only 100 given to important people to Raleigh I believe. Each one numbered and given with a certificate. The owner has it in his cycle museum.

I think they got into the MTB market with a good bike but late in. Seriously uncool by then. It's been there ever since. Now it's with claud butler bikes as cheap and poor value. Better to get a Boardman, voodoo or decathlon bike if short on cash.

Anyone still ride a Raleigh? My old road bike is a Raleigh M-trax labelled one. 700 exage 7 speed gears and brakes. Reynolds frame albeit the poorer variety. Rode well compared to modern road bikes being ridden by the people I once rode with in a local group. Freewheeled downhill better than any other bike, so smooth.
Tangled Metal
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Re: Raleigh Documentary on BBC 4 Tonight (5/10)

Post by Tangled Metal »

PS while that road bike from Raleigh isn't and wasn't really any good I still can't get rid of it. It's in the loft unroadworthy. It's ridden the Ribble Valley and further afield with me a long way during school holidays. Memories make a bike more than the sum of its components.

So it'll stay in my own personal bike museum under the heartfelt but unlikely promise to be out, back onto the road one day.
keyboardmonkey
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Location: Yorkshire

Re: Raleigh Documentary on BBC 4 Tonight (5/10)

Post by keyboardmonkey »

Tangled Metal wrote:...

Anyone still ride a Raleigh? ...


Raleigh? Rarely. First time out in years last month after putting a NOS Uniglide chain on it last year, I *think*.

It came with 52/42 and 13-21, but with around three-and-a-half decades on the clock I’ve cheated and fitted a 28T sprocket :shock:

Lovely ride...

25D8354E-D1F2-4FCC-93F6-33C1760EC97C.jpeg
reohn2
Posts: 45158
Joined: 26 Jun 2009, 8:21pm

Re: Raleigh Documentary on BBC 4 Tonight (5/10)

Post by reohn2 »

Tangled Metal wrote:Except cars, quality was only worse in America at the time I believe. Probably other UK companies and sectors too. Rosy glasses work very well with a red outlook in life I think! :lol:

Btw did they make much of industrial relations at the factory? The only bit I watched just mentioned low morale. Is that a euphemism for industrial action? Then the flying pickets guy.

What killed UK industry wasn't just industrial action though it did play no insignificant part but came as a backlash to crass managment skills lacking in foresight,R&D,with poor worker relations,and upper class twits who thought they knew best and were better,how wrong they were.
If they weren't so incompetent they were milking it for all it's worth,Raleigh,Triumph motorcycles,Rover,British Leyland and recently Noton motorcycles,the list goes on.
How is it Spain and Italy can build trains but the UK can't?
Look at today's governement to see where things are still persisting in the same way,idiots running a show they've no idea how to and financed by dirty laundered foreign money from Russian oligrachs and media moguls who don't live here or pay any taxes here but seek to make the UK into an offshore tax haven with poor standards across the boadprd for the ordinary wo/man.
Is it any wonder the workforce had low morale,I suggest you remove the blue tinted specs and open your eyes!
-----------------------------------------------------------
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
francovendee
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Joined: 5 May 2009, 6:32am

Re: Raleigh Documentary on BBC 4 Tonight (5/10)

Post by francovendee »

[quote=

Anyone still ride a Raleigh? My old road bike is a Raleigh M-trax labelled one. 700 exage 7 speed gears and brakes. Reynolds frame albeit the poorer variety. Rode well compared to modern road bikes being ridden by the people I once rode with in a local group. Freewheeled downhill better than any other bike, so smooth.[/quote]

Yes, nearly every day. Around 5000 miles each year. Bit like triggers broom but at least the frame is original.
I've thought of replacing it many times, still do, but I've travelled a long way on it and only once has it failed to get me home.
Oldjohnw
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Re: Raleigh Documentary on BBC 4 Tonight (5/10)

Post by Oldjohnw »

IMG_20200702_134642202_HDR.jpg


20 years old and still going strong.
John
Tangled Metal
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Joined: 13 Feb 2015, 8:32pm

Re: Raleigh Documentary on BBC 4 Tonight (5/10)

Post by Tangled Metal »

20 years? Barely broken in! My Raleigh is 30. Not ridden it for almost a decade now though. It needs more TLC than I have the knowledge, skills and time to give it. Definitely not cost effective to get it roadworthy but it'll happen one day. I've made that promise to myself and I'll keep it. Then I'll ride the ribble valley and forest of Bowland area like old times. It knows that area well enough to lead me I reckon. :lol:
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