>I keep hearing snippets of the Dunlop tire controversy- Can you enlighten
>those of us unfamiliar with the history?
Sheldon Brown, the Michelin Rubber Man of Cycledom (who truly knows more about cycle tyres than anyone!) can tell it better. But essential Dunlop had always supplied Raleigh with tyres (and lightweight rims) for ages. Indeed, I think they were Raleigh's major outside supplier, remembering when Raleigh could and did make practically everything under one roof. Smack dab in the middle of the Bike Boom, Dunlop got greedy and thinking they had Raleigh over a barrel, dramatically raised their prices when demand was at an all-time high. But the folks at TI seldom blinked and in one fell swoop, cancelled their contract with Raleigh and outsourced their tyres to anyone or anyone.
I remember distinctly when this happened and Dunlop was a renown name and it was a bit of shock to buy a Raleigh Sprite 27 and have "Raleigh" marked tyres which were marked "Foreign" and made by Semperit of Austria. I think they took up the slack in 1973-75 with good tyres if not quite Dunlops. But after that, Raleigh went to Asia and the quality went down. Way down. But it was just weird to walk into a cycle shop and not see those familiar Dunlop yellow, red and black boxes. Remember that cool Dunlop tyre gauge in the yellow plastic tube? And the yellow metal tyre patching kit with the little piece of chalk and emory paper? Ah, the good old days of cycling.
Now does anyone know when Raleigh turned over their rim production to their in-house Sturmey-Archer instead of Dunlop? I think this occured around the same time, maybe earlier.
And of course, the moral of the story is that Dunlop just went out of the cycle tyre (and rim) business as a result. Don't mess with Tube Investments! I can imagine their bargaining with Campagnolo, their biggest single customer, was not for the faint of heart.
Peter Kohler
Washington DC USA