Raleigh 'Made in England'

[Brian73]

I have just bought a Raleigh Chimera road bike. It dates from 2002-2003

It has a sticker on it saying 'Made in England'

Were Raleigh just assembling bikes in 2002-2003 using imported frames or actually still fabricating frames?

It's TIG welded Cr-Mo with all the braze-ons for downtube shifters, rack and mudguards

Seems odd because many other manufacturers were using aluminium for their bikes by 2003

Not that light, but seems quite robust

[Vorpal]

That's about when the Raleigh factory closed. Most frames were produced in Asia, and bicycles assembled in England.
I think they stopped making production frames in England when Derby bought them ~2000.

I think they still made some high end & prototype frames in England.

[Brucey]

I agree; that is almost certainly a frame that was made in the far east somewhere. Not a bad frame per se (I don't think it is very likely to break or anything) but it'll ride like a plank with tubes like that.

cheers

[Valbrona]

Raleigh were making brazed frames in the UK through the 1990s. But they didn't weld any frames.

[meic]

Raleigh were mass importing frames from the East to the Nottingham factory to be assembled into bikes back in 1995. I was working for a UK manufacturing supplier of theirs at the time.

I also thought they were importing them back in 92/93 when I first worked for the company.

[Brian73]

So it begs the question:

What actually constitutes 'Made in England' these days?

I've also seen 'Handbuilt in Britain' which is more vague

My Nissan is made in Sunderland

Given what I paid, the components on the bike were worth more than the frame, so it basically a free frame It's too good for the scrap man.

[Brucey]

Raleigh were making brazed frames in the UK through the 1990s. But they didn't weld any frames.

-apart from the Ti ones...?

cheers

[Brucey]

So it begs the question:
What actually constitutes 'Made in England' these days?

IIRC the rules say that you can claim 'made in X' if X is the last 'country of significant manufacturing input'. This can mean just screwing a few bits together. It says nothing about where those parts (even the frame) were made.

....so it basically a free frame It's too good for the scrap man.

If it had slotted dropouts, it'd build up into a half-decent fixie or something like that. As it is, you would need to use a chain tensioner, 'magic gear' or get the welding set out to make it work like that.

cheers

[Valbrona]

Raleigh were making brazed frames in the UK through the 1990s. But they didn't weld any frames.

-apart from the Ti ones...?

cheers

Don't remember those. But I know they glued Ti tubes into frames.

[Cyril Haearn]

My bike is marked "designed in Germany". It was made elsewhere.

[Bmblbzzz]

Even in the days when the frames were welded or brazed (or glued!) in Nottingham, what did "Made in England" mean? Maybe it was made of Reynolds tubes (or maybe Columbus, Tange, or True Temper) but what about the components? What about the steel in the tubes? Etc etc. In short, unless it's something that's been dug out of the ground or grown in the soil, it's an extremely rare item that is the product of one place. And that's before we even consider the non-manufacturing processes that went into its production (ie design, distribution, perhaps final assembly in shop or home, ... )

[alexnharvey]

What about the Raleigh special products (RSP) frames which were made in England, when did they stop? I think they made fancy steel (853 etc) and titanium frames, both tig welded.

[Vorpal]

What about the Raleigh special products (RSP) frames which were made in England, when did they stop? I think they made fancy steel (853 etc) and titanium frames, both tig welded.

Special products division continued making some frames until fairly recently.

edit: I'm not sure when. I had a look on Wikipedia, thinking they might say, but they don't.