[Closed] We all had a Raleigh at some point, didn't we?

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I had a lovely Raleigh Outland, which i adored.

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One of these

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My first bike
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My second bike
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My third bike
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Yeah I was rolling deep in Raleigh's when I was a kid.

Raleigh Tomahawk

[url= https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/688/32514148153_1883498e70_k.jp g" target="_blank">https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/688/32514148153_1883498e70_k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/Rxavtg ]Tomahawk[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/takisawa2/ ]pten2106[/url], on Flickr

I had a Budgie in a dark gold and then a red and yellow Burner. I defected to Peugeot for my first mountain bike.

(Not my bike pics)

My first was a Commando
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Second was a Criterium Triathlon

[img] https://www.cyclechat.net/media/raleigh-criterium-triathlon-12.8310/full?d=1438720959 [/img]

Third Vitesse

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Bomber in superchrome blue.

My first bike was.
Shame my parents thought that in the 1980's this was 'more practical than one of those BMX things'. Can you tell I was bullied at school?
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Small Rider
Strika
Grifter
Burner GS

In that order. None since and having seen some late offerings nay thanks.

Strika in red, and a Team Banana replica.

Chopper. Hideous thing that meant all my mates on their racers were faster than me.

Burner like this

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And a Grifter before that. Then had a Raleigh road bike, but can't remember the model. Would love it PDF they started making great mountain and messing about bikes again

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Raliegh Chipper, for those not grown enough to have a chopper.

I own two now, actual made in Nottingham Raleighs

Pretty sure my first Raleigh was a Chipper, followed by a Grifter.

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I had a lovely cardigan as well

Raleigh Lion Trike.
Then a Tomahawk.
Then a Grifter.
Then a Magnum road bike.

I genuinely didn't know other manufacturers existed until '74 when the lad next door acquired a very cool green Puch 'chopper'.

Had a Chopper and a racer in the 70s . 8)

One if these, if not that very one. My first 'ATB' as they were referred to.

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funkmasterp I always wanted one of them in that colour.

My mate had one and i'll always remember him tear arsing off some steps only for his rear mag wheel to collapse on landing and him crushing his nuts on the saddle 😈

Mine was pink, like this:

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24" wheels, rode it all over the moors.

I had one of these shipped out the US by my Dad.

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In the late 70s and early 80s I had;
A purple Budgie (baby Chopper)
A green Strika
A red Grifter
All hand me downs, all got truly thrashed and abused. Happy days!!

Raleigh clubman, then another raleigh clubman, then a raleigh criterium, also a raleigh bannana, not the team issue one the cheap pretend one.

Been out for a ride on the raleigh tonight, bought in 1986, from asale cycles manchester.

I had one of these.
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Then a Grifter with a Puch Maxi moped fork fitted. 😯

Then one of these.
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Then one of these.
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At one point before I got married, I had 5 Raleigh BMXs and 2 Grifters. In my one-bedroom flat 🙂

Just sneaking into the "everyone" club - got my first one at the end of last year.

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F&F given to me by teasel off here when I was after something to use as a "crappy" commuter. 😀 Far too good for that! It's bluddy lovely. Never ridden anything so smooth. So it's currently a "far better than it's 30 year old paint and road grime patina would have you believe" commuter, and will be taking me on some long rides and audaxes this year.

My brother was a couple of years younger than me but between us we had, a Strika and he got the small one of the Strika/Grifter trilogy which I can't remember the name, then I got an Arena 5 speed when he got a Commando, then we bot got BMX's, mine was an Ultra Burner and he got a Super Tuff Burner with yellow Skyways. Happy days!

I had a gold bike with white tyres and a sparkly silver seat which looked like a Chopper. Pretty sure it was a Raleigh - anybody know what model it would have been?

also had a Raleigh Winner that my Dad bought off someone for £10, and served me well as a commuter for a few years.

My first tree bikes Raleighs.

The Pixie

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The Tomahawk

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The Meteor

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3 bikes to see me until I was 14. My 9 year old is on his fifth!

first mountain bike was a raleigh gritstone. Long gone now but I do have two in the garage. A lovely triathlon with 531 tubes which I use as my winter roadie and another touring bike I have built up as a fixie.

Yup.

Raleigh Amazon - my first ever bike that wasn't from the local paper.
It was bought a good couple of months before Christmas and stored in the caravan (in our garden). I remember sneaking in more than a few times in the morning on the way out to my paper round to look at the shiny loveliness of my soon-to-be new bike.
Many, many happy years on that bike - 10 years and post university later it was still going, at least 2 rear wheels and now on slicks to bomb around the city.

Happy days - compared to anything modern it was rubbish I'm sure - but the paint job was fantastic - a sort of metallic speckled fade type thing, lovely!

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Mine was a Mustang. My dad went into the shop and brought "proper" mountain bikes for the whole family (mum, dad, 2 kids); emptied out the shop. A wonderful small shop in Rugby that's probably closed decades ago.

Lots of fond memories of that bike but it wasn't the lightest of things....

Boxer
Burner
Winner
Banana

Loved them all if I remember rightly!

Have you seen the default spec and weight of the Raleigh that Steve Abraham is using for his latest record attempt? 😯

Grifter
Mustang, the Halfords exclusive one.
Raleigh Avanti Race, modern CF race bike, fast not comfy.
Currently hanging my nose over the new mustang adventure bike, the love child of the last two.

I think I had a chipper, then a chopper, a 24" pacer and finally a Mustang.

@martinhutch, I had the same bike! Raleigh Arena. God I loved that bike

Whaddya mean 'had'...?

I've got a Raleigh Militis Elite frame in the garage that I am waiting on the last couple of bits before building up.

It's a really nice frame....

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A jeep. It was from Hare's Cycles of Livingstone Road in Bath and was my 9th birthday present. I remember it wasn't there in time for my actual birthday because a flu epidemic meant that the bike shop was shut for a week.
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Striker
Grifter
Team Banana road
Avanti MTB
Team DynaTech Pro MTB

I'm selling a Raleigh atm. 🙂

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Yes, my grandma bought me a fireball for my birthday (I don't remember how old I was).

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Seeing that picture has brought back a vivid memory...

Tiger trike. Rode it until I was way too old for it and the back snapped off. Fixed, one wheel drive so any downward gradient required riding 2 wheels. [img] [/img] Later, a Raleigh Maverick 5 speed. This is the closest pic I could find. So heavy it generated its own field of gravity. Eventually killed by being run over by a builder truck. [img] [/img]

Green strika back in late 70's with the cool back pedal brake for me, was awesome for skids

First one I remember was an Orange racer, no idea what it was but it was a Raleigh.
Then a Styler mag BMX.
Then a DynaTech MTB that was actually my brother in laws. When I eventually gave it him back he chucked it in a skip!!

Raleigh Mustang in Pink. I still remember exactly how much I paid (£189.99) and how it died...under the wheels of boy racers at Liss station. Very sad times 🙁 but I replaced it with a lovely steel Marin Pine Mountain and suddenly the world of spending too much on bikes opened up!

Raleigh Medale
Mine looked exactly like this, right down to the light.

I could wheelie one handed the whole length of our street on it, so why can't I do it now??

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In the summer holidays when I was about 11 it was confiscated by my Dad because I went "missing" on it and was found by Police on the other side of Manchester and brought home in a panda.

I thought Raleigh were the dogs dannglys when I was younger. Just reading through this I don't recall owning so many but here's what my old brain can recall
1first bike boxer
2 strika
3budgie
4Chopper
5atleast 3 different types of burner
6 first mountain bike was a mantis
7I currently still run a retro Raleigh twenty and it is one of my favourite bikes.

Too many fond memories

Burner here...

Currently I have a 1983 Record Ace

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and a 1985 Competition

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and a 1982 Road Ace, which I don't have a picture of.

this thread got me googling. This is available, brand new, for a c2w-friendly £999...

[img] http://i1.adis.ws/i/washford/1477036282844?w=637&h=403 [/img]

Like many here, a Raleigh (Tomahawk) was my first bike and the bug that bit me for life.

Over the years:

M-Trax (rigid cromo variety) x 2
Stowaway
Twenty
Apex (Reynolds K2 lugged brute which was exceptionally hardwearing and weirdly got me back into cycling after a decade of swapping hardly-ridden garage-queen lightweights )

Proudest bike-build moment was when my restored/customised retro M-Trax 150 was given highest praise over on that there retro forum (by lurking RSP head of products no less)

Seem always to have one Raleigh in the stable. Latest was a surprise gift from an old friend who moved house and decided to give me his old Scirocco. Requires full respray/restoration but I'm up for the challenge! It may be some time...hope to do it by sourcing old bits via bidding and blagging/talking to the bloke at the tip 😀

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I had a wild cat as a kid, then a mustang, in a kind of metallic rusty orange colour, fond memories of that bike. Did some miles on it too.

Forgot to add my first 'proper' bike (Carlton Cyclone) to the list, apparently that was a Raleigh brand too at the time (early 80s). Safe to say I have a soft spot for Raleigh steelies. A real shame about their eventual demise as a manufacturer/brand as they had many a 'Golden Age', the last being the 90s. Used to chat a fair bit back then with Barrie Clarke who was always keen to show us the newest and lightest Team Raleigh M-Trax/Dyna-Tech rides/innovations he had knocking about his shop. He was starting up his own lightweight XC brand 'Venom' back then, but I moved away from the area so no idea what happened to that. Rarer than hen's teeth I'd say?

I had a red Strika and was envious of my brother with his Boxer. My 2nd MTB was a Yukon; loved that bike more than my Dawes Kick Back and as much as any of my latest bikes.

We sold those Amazons and Mustangs in their hundreds. Awful things, and no misty eyed reminiscing will convince me otherwise. Now, can we talk RSP… some lovely bikes…

i had a strika, then a raleigh flyer road bike and finally a 5 speed maverick. The flyer was a little too big for me, and i still wince remembering the many crashes involving my body meeting the toptube at speed.

I had:

Budgie
Commando
Micron 5 (a tiny road bike)
Maverick
Montage
Dynatech Pro (Full Suntour XC Pro with Grease nipples on hubs and BB)

My second ever bike was a Raleigh Amazon, after my first, a Giant Stonebreaker, was nicked out of the shed.

The paint job was called 'Brazilian Rain' and it was gorgeous. Just look at it!

[img] http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/download/file.php?id=127908 [/img]

Also I had a brown Twenty a couple of years ago for scooting about in hipster London. Matt, you were just ahead of the curve.

My first love - A Raleigh Kite Convertible circa early '70s (Google image) [url= https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3923/33331777935_57159fd76e_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3923/33331777935_57159fd76e_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/SMq5jt ]Screen Shot 2017-03-09 at 00.47.21[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/145571820@N03/ ]Paul Tarrant[/url], on Flickr 😀

Between my brother and sister we had a Chipper, a Chopper and a Bomber
No access to photo's right now I'm afraid.
Good memories

I had a Raleigh Olympus that was purchased from a next door neighbor, actually it was rescued from a ditch where he had dumped it, but that was my only one. When BMX's hit, I initially had a no brand cheapo from exchange and mart, then after mucho saving, a GT Pro performer frame and forks that I built up, but lots of my mates had Burners.

However, before BMX's hit the scene where I lived, I hankered after a Raleigh Bomber that was always in my Mums catalog. Remember them?

I had a beautiful team titanium (all ti, not lugged) frame that I eventually sold to TandemJeremy.

Nope, never owned or ridden one! Think this is a classic generational thing 🙂

Yellow boxer, red/yellow burner hand-me-down, milk race special.

The only Raleigh I've ever had was one of these:

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A Max Ogre with Reflectalite paint 😀

Was horrifically heavy, had flexy plastic canti's and the most uncomfortable saddle known to man! Didn't stop me riding it relentlessly for 4 years everywhere I could pedal to within a 30 mile radius of home when I was a young teenager though. It was an upgrade from the Apollos I had before it and I distinctly remember buying it as my dad had scraped together the £150 it cost for weeks after I'd snapped the previous bike in half 3 months previously.

I had a early 90's (93 maybe?) Raleigh Team Edition MTB that was painted to look like the M Trax Ti bikes that Barry whosisface rode. Lovely looking thing, but the bar had no bend at all, and my dad insisted on my having a 21" frame so that I'd grow into it. It still wouldn't fit me now, I was only 10 when I had it, I'm fairly sure it contributed to my biggest crash ever when I knocked myself out and broke my collarbone.

Edit - it was 1994, looked like one of these but was chromo rather than ti.

[img] http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/download/file.php?id=254869 [/img]

Three here:

A green and white bmx with one end white and one end green and a duck's face on the saddle. No idea of the name.

A Gravity, aptly named as it had it's own gravitational field.

Many years later, a Pro Race in Reynolds 501db. Man that was a lovely frame, super smooth. Still see them being used in London, fixed, by couriers.

Super Burner: [img] [/img]

I had a bright yellow Boxer and the chrome Burner,with mag wheels obvs.

Yup!

A Cyclone, Jeep and a Carlton

In order
Tomahawk
Hustler GT (sturmy archer 3 speed with full length mudguards - not cool when you're 11)
Chopper (classic purple)
Ultra Burner ( upgraded with Renthal bars and Aero mags)
Raleigh Record

I started off with a hand me down Grifter then progressed to a Raleigh Supersport which was a posh version of the Raleigh Winner. It had blue foam "bar tape" which would soak up rain and then stay wet for hours... 😀

Silver/Blue fade paintjob and silver saddle...
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Trying to think back....

Striker
Grifter
Bomber
Pulsar
Record
Maverick
Summit

My one and only brand new complete bike

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Replaced by BSA tour of Britain racer

Just bought this little number. Carbon Raleigh Roker gravel monster 🙂

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simon_g, the shoes complete that image!