One aspect of the Raleigh Professional which has always intrigued me is that it, from my own experience, appears to have been the world's greatest garage queen in cycledom. Almost all of the examples on eBay are in amazing, often pristine shape, even the frames which have long since been stripped of their components. Furthermore, I have never once seen one of these bikes actually being ridden. Well once and that was last year when Dan Artley rode his on his CR group ride. So maybe the Raleigh Pro was the choice for that major Bike Boom market: the guys with bucks who got caught up in the bike mania, slapped down their $450 and "wanted the best". And rode it like 3 times and hung it on the garage wall.
Oh, many were shocked when I said I don't own a '70s Raleigh. Well I don't, honest! I own and love a 1980 Raleigh Team Professional (753) and don't tell me that's not primo quality AND tres cool. And also a '48 RRA and a '58 RRA, two other examples of why Raleigh wasn't all mass produced stuff.
But if I owned a Raleigh Professional, I have to find a place on my wall to hang it so it would feel at home.
Peter Kohler
Washington DC USA