Dawes to stop making the Galaxy due to lack of demand...

[scottg]

The frame is massively overpriced -£650 -700 for the new disc trucker frame. [snip].

Retail is $575 in the States, £200 of taxes & distro fees ?

[SIL4]

It's a shame but I think we saw this coming. Dawes just seemed to buy in the lowest price parts and loosely configure a touring bike. When I saw they were doing them with aluminium frames I thought they'd lost the plot when it comes to their core appeal. No doubt to the accountants they saw that aluminium frames were cheaper nowadays so that dictated the spec.

The only Dawes bike I've ever owned is a Dawes Kingpin folding bike. Very innovative for its time and beat the Raleigh Twenty to market. I did often put a Dawes Galaxies into my ebay watchlist but always went for more than I was prepared to pay.

The Dawes Galaxy could have easily continued as a touring bike top seller, it's all about the right spec at the right price. I just feel their spec was wrong on many occasions. You can allow for one or two bad component choices but it seemed like a lot of wrong choices and missing features. I look at what Thorn is offering and while prices are high I feel you have a product fit for purpose right out of the door.

Someone like Thorn should license the brand and model and do a true Dawes Galaxy of 2021. There is no reason for the iconic touring brand and model to disappear. You wonder what is left of the Dawes brand anyway. Their recent Kingpin folding bikes have been very generic chinese models sold at extremely high prices compared to other brands importing the same models.

I agree: there's potentially a lot of store in a really good name. At a distance and without brand labels, and like many other products, most modern bike brands are totally indistinguishable from one another: like VW Group cars, a lot of them roll out the same factories but are even more generic than that, sharing the same core components from the same small pool of suppliers. Decide on your brand (Audi or Skoda etc.), pick a colour (if you have the choice), choose your groupset tier, 'customise' it with your own choice of finishing kit & pedals....and away you go.

It's a shadow of its former self but Raleigh cleverly captilized on the retro market (especially for those of us of a certain age...) with their carefully reproduced Burner editions - never likely to get ridden as intended, of course, but a nostalgic edition to the man-cave or for the odd occasion when a 50-something Dad wants to make a complete fool out of himself by pretending he is Andy Ruffell....but the intent was sound and while perhaps the 753 TI reproduction probably doesn't have quite the same practical appeal as a modern road bike, you can see the appeal and what they were thinking.

A modern, retro take on the old Randonneur or Galaxy would probably find a market: take off the 'guards and fit it with 650B wheels and a single ring and my Gran Tour 725 would suddenly become a gravel bike, par excellence, similar to what's out there already. It even has the de rigeur olive green paint job...

[iandriver]

The frame is massively overpriced -£650 -700 for the new disc trucker frame. [snip].

Retail is $575 in the States, £200 of taxes & distro fees ?

Exchange rates have changed massively over that time. If they trade in US dollars, might explain a lot of it. Many frames shot up around that time. It's not limited to Suley. Kinesis frames, as one example, have seen similar increases.

[pwa]

The name Dawes may mean something to some people over a certain age, but it means next to nothing for younger people. It is a name from the age when you could go out and buy a Rover car. I think the brand name has a small and declining value now. Sadly.

[mercalia]

The Surly LHT is the standard touring bike now, judging from the number around.

The frame is massively overpriced -£650 -700 for the new disc trucker frame. Good frame; ridiculous price increases across the whole of the Surly and Salsa ranges over the last few years (same company owns both).

Couldn't agree more. It's about time someone ate their lunch. I suppose you could argue that a few smaller companies are nibbling at the edges, Spa, etc.

A few years ago ( not that many) SPA had those frames for about £350. Inflation hasnt been that much.....I was tempted to buy one then. I should have.

[simonhill]

I bought an LHT frame just after Brexit for £400 because I guessed they would increase in price to reflect the 20% £/$ fall. Sure enough and exactly on the mark, the new stock was £480.

It doesn't explain subsequent price rises, particularly if they are still selling in The States for $575. It certainly looks like profiteering.

[Mike Sales]

If anyone is inerested, here is the specification of the Galaxy I bought in about 1980, when I understood that it was the best off the peg tourer.

531PG main tubes.
Weinmann centre pulls with "suicide levers" on the randonneur bars.
Brooks saddle.
Simplex plastic mechs and levers.
40/52 cottered steel chainset, Lyotard rat traps.
14/28 5 speed freewheel.
Normandy LF hubs, Weinmann 27" rims.
Steel rack.
Plastic guards.

I did many enjoyable (and some hard) miles on this bike, and gradually uprated the components, some before they gave up.
I was equipped also with enthusiasm, and the desire to cover the miles, and I suspect that these are more important than the refinement of your bike.

[bgnukem]

It's a shame, end of an era. I've had my Mean Street (with the Galaxy 531ST frameset) for 26 years now and have completed many enjoyable and comfortable miles on it. The Galaxy was almost the default bike for the various CTC groups and club runs I've taken part in over the years, but many of the old-style cycle tourists that used to buy them have died out or become too old to ride now.

I think also perhaps the amount of loaded touring that happens in the UK has decreased over the years, not helped by the crazy levels of traffic in the UK and lack of reasonably direct roads for touring that are still safe enough to ride on. E.g. touring on 'B' roads was reasonably possible say 25-30 years ago but most are rat runs now.

Also there's far more choice of bike manufacturers and bikes now and gravel and 'cross bikes may have stolen sales from touring bikes, which were always rather a small niche to begin with. Ironically I bought my Dawes from St John Street who later went on to stop selling them and develop their own complete range of touring bikes...

I think Dawes bikes also became rather heavy and clunky, and expensive, after they outsourced their frame manufacture overseas. The Surly LHT seems to be overbuilt for normal riding/lighter loads though and overpriced for what is after all fairly basic steel tubing.

[mercalia]

It's a shame, end of an era. I've had my Mean Street (with the Galaxy 531ST frameset) for 26 years now and have completed many enjoyable and comfortable miles on it. The Galaxy was almost the default bike for the various CTC groups and club runs I've taken part in over the years, but many of the old-style cycle tourists that used to buy them have died out or become too old to ride now.

I think also perhaps the amount of loaded touring that happens in the UK has decreased over the years, not helped by the crazy levels of traffic in the UK and lack of reasonably direct roads for touring that are still safe enough to ride on. E.g. touring on 'B' roads was reasonably possible say 25-30 years ago but most are rat runs now.

Also there's far more choice of bike manufacturers and bikes now and gravel and 'cross bikes may have stolen sales from touring bikes, which were always rather a small niche to begin with. Ironically I bought my Dawes from St John Street who later went on to stop selling them and develop their own complete range of touring bikes...

I think Dawes bikes also became rather heavy and clunky, and expensive, after they outsourced their frame manufacture overseas. The Surly LHT seems to be overbuilt for normal riding/lighter loads though and overpriced for what is after all fairly basic steel tubing.

yes I see people with bikes on the back of their car they use to get to a target destination. Also I wonder to what extent the changes in the YHA have affected things ( and vice versa) eg East Anglia used to have lots of YHA hostels now it has only 4, even the one in Norwich has gone. Apart form those, there used to be ones in Epping Forest, Saffron Walden, Nedging tye, Colchester, one west of Ipswich, Castle Hedingham, Gt Yarmouth, Kings Lynn. To do cycle touring you have to have some where cheap to stay that accepts young people. And of course it was cycle touring or nothing. Many people didnt have cars in the olde days.

These days I see a few neglected Galaxys being used as hack cheapo bikes with poor paint being used on the shop run, bearing little resemblance to their glory days.

[mercalia]

I bought my 2016 Gran Tour 725 on a whim with some proper touring in mind, before my plans changed, and so it never got used as intended and I had planned to sell it, but it's now temporarily acting as my road bike over winter and so will be keeping it: great finish, rides nicely and the quality is a good as anything else I've owned.

Thats a nice bike I would keep it

[SIL4]

I bought my 2016 Gran Tour 725 on a whim with some proper touring in mind, before my plans changed, and so it never got used as intended and I had planned to sell it, but it's now temporarily acting as my road bike over winter and so will be keeping it: great finish, rides nicely and the quality is a good as anything else I've owned.

Thats a nice bike I would keep it

Yes, it's a keeper, but I always regret selling this - a rare Synthesis XT 653, which they can't have sold more than a handful of: bought from Harry Hall at a bargain price because it was the only one they had and couldn't even sell it at 50% a discount. Full XT groupset, ceramic Mavic rims etc.

I sold it but ended up buying it back and fitted it with an ENO hub and then foolishly sold it again to make some room... hindsight is wonderful, but someone on this forum could well be enjoying it still..

[markjohnobrien]

I bought my 2016 Gran Tour 725 on a whim with some proper touring in mind, before my plans changed, and so it never got used as intended and I had planned to sell it, but it's now temporarily acting as my road bike over winter and so will be keeping it: great finish, rides nicely and the quality is a good as anything else I've owned.

Thats a nice bike I would keep it

Yes, it's a keeper, but I always regret selling this - a rare Synthesis XT 653, which they can't have sold more than a handful of: bought from Harry Hall at a bargain price because it was the only one they had and couldn't even sell it at 50% a discount. Full XT groupset, ceramic Mavic rims etc.

I sold it but ended up buying it back and fitted it with an ENO hub and then foolishly sold it again to make some room... hindsight is wonderful, but someone on this forum could well be enjoying it still..

Ooooh: that’s lovely. Very nice frame (and colour).

Always had a hankering for a 653 frame and came very close to ordering a 653 Mercian in the 90’s.

[Tangled Metal]

That falcon bike pictured upthread is an aluminium alloy bike, the super for is the steel bike. Both seem to have similar specs except for the frame material and the steel one looks to have the means to attach a rack the other doesn't. They do look poor quality or cheap and nasty take your pick. Mind you falcon have been cheap and nasty for decades now I think.

[The utility cyclist]

for decades it's been a fat bloater* and not value for money, the name was the only thing keeping it going with people buying it having had one BITD or knowing someone who had one and lusted over it
It wasn't a bad bike as such, just that the competition for people's money had moved on ... a lot and prices for bikes had gone downward for what you could buy whilst Dawes kept knocking out Galaxy's at more than the competition.

Latest 'Ultra' Galaxy is a bog standard Reynolds 520 with Sora 3x9 for £1200, that's right TWELVE HUNDRED oh and it's even heavier than before at 15kg.

2002 Ridgeback Comet is 12.6kg for a ladies and under13kg for a 56 male variant, that's incl guard/rack and pedals. A standard Galaxy in the 00s was 14.5kg

[drossall]

Everything moves on. The Galaxy was the best of the mass-produced out-and-out tourers. But that market was arguably new when the Galaxy emerged. I've got a Holdsworth Mistral - similar standard of bike, but a little more of an all-rounder for club riding and touring, and coming to the end of its life as a model in the early 80s when the Galaxy was really coming to the fore. That perhaps reflects the fact that the Mistral was from an age when you had one decent bike that did it all (maybe not racing, although the Mistral could), and the Galaxy from the next generation, as people began to have different bikes for different purposes; before then, if you wanted an out-and-out tourer, you had one built as your only bike. In each case, they were what you bought if you knew a good bike, but couldn't afford a custom build.

Now things have moved on again, custom-built frames are rare, and everything is made in the Far East. So a mass-produced British-built bike was always going to struggle.

I've never had a Galaxy, but I am very happy to have a Dawes Imperial - similar standard of bike, from the (end of the) 80s again, but more sporty as a frame. I'd rather have that than a modern carbon-fibre wonder, but not enough people agree with me to sustain either model.