When did Raleigh stop making roadsters and what replaced them?

[Lawhq]

When did Raleigh stop making roadsters and what replaced them?
Looking to find something in that kind of upright style
Thanks!

[TrevA]

According to Wikipedia, the popularity of the Roadster in the UK declined in the 1970’s and the Roadster was “dead” by 1990.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadster_(bicycle)

This coincided with the rise of the Mountain Bike in popularity. But an MTB is not a direct replacement for the Roadster. In time, what is now known as a Hybrid bike - which is a cross between an MTB and a touring/road bike, became popular for utility and leisure rides.

I would argue that the hybrid bike has replaced the Roadster in the UK and some other countries such as Germany. However, Roadster style bikes are still very popular in the Netherlands, India, China and many other countries and you can still buy them - albeit probably an imported model often known as a Dutch bike. I believe that the British company Pashley still make Roadster style bikes. They even have a couple of models called Roadsters.

https://www.pashley.co.uk/bikes/bicycles.php

[pete75]

By the looks of this still being advertised in the seventies or is it from the eighties?

[TrevA]

By the look of the human models clothes, I would definitely say 70’s!

[thirdcrank]

There used to be a detailed history of Raleigh linked on here including how the firm went from being a manufacturer to an importer, but the link seems to be broken.

If you are really interested in a modern roadster-type bike, then they are available. An example of a specialist retailer is Cycle Heaven in York. If you mention a location, others may point you somewhere

https://www.cycle-heaven.co.uk/products ... town-bikes

[Tangled Metal]

I saw something unusual yesterday. Two teenagers of about 16 yo on bikes. One a classic mtb that's never really seen any offroad. The other whilst not a roadster it looked like a cruiser bike. The one with all curly tubes and an old school cool vibe going on. With a strange thing on the back axle extending to the back with a light on it. I could see no point to that contraption on the back wheel but it made me think it was a device to stop excessive wheelies. Since kids these days seem to love doing wheelies in the middle of the road in town I guess that's what it's for. Could be wrong.

Anyway, there's still all manner of bikes available from roadsters to modern penny farthings if you look around enough.

[Nearholmer]

I think TrevA is absolutely right: c1990; superseded by MTB-derived hybrids.

The MTB-derived hybrids, basically MTB gearing and general frame shape, emerged in the late 1980s, when somebody started to build frames to take 700c, rather than 650b, wheels, and were initially pitched as “cross bikes”, meaning not Cyclo-cross, but cross-country, as in a faster off-roader, but they quickly became a “road and light gravel” bike, displacing the last of the roadsters and most of the nearly-roadster type bikes.

Why so obsessed with this? Because I took the cross-country pitch seriously, bought a good one in 1991, and used it for everything, commuting and “light gravel” for 25 years, before going back to a drop bar bike.

Want an actual roadster, or one of those near-roadsters? Pashley. Heavy as a skip full of anvils, but rather splendid!

PS: The “anti-wheelie” device was more likely a flip-down stand, some “Dutch” bikes having one that sort of wraps round the back wheel.

[simonhill]

Are they still available in China and India?

I haven't been to either country for a while, but even when last there (2000s) for India and early teens for China, I would say they were on the way out.

Bicycles were becoming rare(r) in China, with people preferring motor or e-mopeds. Any new bikes were mainly cheap MTB styles.

Much more recently in Sri Lanka and again it was cheap Chinese MTB style.

I regularly cycle in Asia and nowadays bikes are a bit of a rarity in many countries. Twenty plus years ago I cycled in a mass of bikes down the broad boulevards of Saigon. Last time (2 years) virtually no bikes, only motor ones and me.

[iandusud]

By the looks of this still being advertised in the seventies or is it from the eighties?

That's very interesting. This advert looks like it was for the American market. In the UK in the 80s the Raleigh Roadster was like the one in the ad but with 26x1 3/8 wheels. The Superbe was like the Roadster but with a full chaincase and other refinements. The Tourist was like the Superbe in the ad, i.e. with cable brakes.

[rjb]

Raleigh updated the Twenty to produce the Wisp at this time.
Here's Twiggy on a Wisp in 1967.

[freiston]

This got me thinking as to what a roadster is. In the 70s I would have said rod brakes & fully enclosed chainguard but nowadays, I reckon I would consider the Raleigh Wayfarer as an updated version of a roadster. By my observations, the Wayfarer was ubiquitous in the late 70s/early 80s but I'm struggling to recall what the "popular" non-sporting models were after that. I do recall that utility bikes were typically 26" wheels but sporty bikes 27"/700c. My shady memory suggests that more sporty utility bikes were gaining popularity, such as the early model Pioneer - typical diamond/step-through utility frame, straight bars but derailleur gears (& no chainguard? - can't remember). Then fully rigid mountain bikes with 26" wheels started to gain "traction" ( ) in the utility/popular market and bikes like the pioneer started to look a lot more like those mountain bikes, becoming "hybrid" in the sales jargon.

That's just my hazy recollection

[TrevA]

My wife had a Raleigh Pioneer Jaguar, bought in the early nineties. She actually bought the Gents model as the frame was stiffer. It was quite a good bike for not much money. She did the Great Nottingham Bike Ride 50 miler on it and quite a few CTC rides as well as commuting on it. Triple chainset and twist grip gears, 21 speed. Came with 38mm tyres with quite a chunky tread on them, so was capable of light off roading too. Came with mudguards and a rack.

[Nearholmer]

The 26”/650b wheel rigid MTBs actually came in the 1980s, before the 700c wheel versions that were “cross bikes” for about three or four years, then became “hybrid bikes” (nothing changed except the designation!).

What became known as hybrid “burst on the scene” in 1989 from several larger makers almost simultaneously, Fisher Hybrid, Bianchi Advantage, Peugeot X-country, Specialized Crossroads (1990), but there were some models from less well known makers (all US ones I think) in 1988, and some accounts cite the Bianchi Volpe of 1986, although to me it looks like a touring bike, not a hybrid. They all seem to have used 3x6 (soon 3x7) gearing with MTB ratios, and the explicitly cross-country ones were swiftly followed by more road/utility focused versions with racks, mudguards, cheaper-spec components, and some of these I suspect used frame designs that had previously been dressed with “roadster-ish” components, so quite “forward and high”, rather than purpose-designed frames. They pretty well all had cantilever brakes, in contrast to rod or side-pull, IIRC.

My recollection is that these 3x6 and 3x7 hybrids pretty well wiped-out the remaining 3-speed and 5-speed town and casual leisure models within very few years.

What I can’t recall is what the model names of the Raleigh ones were! I do remember that the better Peugeot models, and the Specialized had better quality components than Raleigh, so I bought the Specialized.

Aha! I’ve found the Raleigh model: Gemini 18 of 1989, which actually had Shimano Exage components, like the Peugeot X-country, so a better specced bike than I’d remembered.

[cycle tramp]

You can always build one yourself. Here's one I made earlier

Just take a 'normal' hybrid or 1980s/1990s mountain bike (if its using an aheadset set up make sure the steer is nice and long) put a 45 degree angle aheadset stem (or long quill stem on it) and put on a nice set of pull back bars from Humpert. Change the cables for longer ones and with a bit of fine tuning, good-bye any shoulder, back or wrist ache

For more thoughts read this book, it's brilliant:-)

[Zanda]

The short answer to the OP is that the hybrid replaced the traditional roadster.

My father owned a series of roadsters, buying a new one even ten years or so, and using them for his one-mile trip to work. The last one he owned was made around 1990 and was among the last to come out Raleigh's Nottingham factory.

I was into mountain bikes at the time and received a budget ATB (as they were known) as a Christmas present in 1989. Around the same time, my mate had a Raleigh Pioneer, which combined mountain bike components with 700c wheels and a frame with roadster geometry. It's hard to overstate the novelty of that combination at the time. A bike with mountain bike gearing but a roadster's ride quality. And this is the format that has stayed with us, as 'the hybrid', into the 2020s.

There are still Dutch bikes, featuring more relaxed geometry, and there are hybrids with internal hub gears from Shimano and SRAM, and I guess those are closer to the original Roadster recipe, though they're rarely found in UK bike shops.