Oh, I am sure plenty of people will rise to the defence of SBDU! Mike Mullett, the works manager, is still around and has written about his tenure under the direction of Gerald O'Donovan. It seems that the intent of SBDU was to build bicycles of the highest quality and I have a 1980 review from "Bicycling" that compares a 753 frame to the contemporary Colnago. Considering that only a dozen people were employed in the shop, the output was probably even less than Colnago's in the same period.
>From all accounts, SBDU under "GoD" happened to be owned by Raleigh but operated on a completely different level. If the frame I have is typical, the workmanship was quite superb. But with all the comments here about the low status of Raleigh in general, I am curious to know what the reaction was when a clubman showed up on an SBDU bike back in the day.
Leslie Reissner Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 21:26:54 -0500
> From: Dean Nixon <vintage.lugged@gmail.com>
> Subject: [CR] Raleigh Team Pro SBDU - Just Another Raleigh?
> To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> Message-ID:
> <a73074c11002071826l7d12328crbefebb61513d7b4e@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
>
> With the whole 'Just a plain old Raleigh' debate going on, where do the
> Raleigh SBDU frames fit in (1974-1979) ? Are these 'just another Raleigh'
> with great marketing? 'Just' wondering. Thanks.
>
> Dean Nixon
> Toronto, Canada