[CR] 1934 RRA

(Example: Framebuilders:Alex Singer)

Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 07:23:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: "P.C. Kohler" <kohl57@yahoo.com>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: [CR] 1934 RRA


"It is just the wasted opportunity of the one-time greatest cycle manufacturer that I find so disappointing"

Hugh Thornton Cheshire, England"

True. Raleigh wasted an opportunity to compete in mass start professional racing bicyles in 1940-60s. Which is, I might suggest, one of the reasons they were indeed the greatest cycle manufacturing firm on the planet. They cherry-picked, deliberately and carefully, what they made and to whom they sold it. And in doing so, they literally created and sold what is, even today, the standard bicycle of the world: the famed, often imitated but never matched (and off topic here) No. 1/DL-1 28" wheel, rod-braked roadster. And they also helped to establish "lightweight" (a relative terms in a land of coaster brake Schwinns) cycling in the United States.

I suspect more than schoolboys bought and rode Lentons, Super Lentons and Clubmans... or Britain had a lot of very well-off lads indeed; I sure couldn't afford to buy one at those prices on my newspaper route earnings. And, if the ads be believed, "Reg Harris Rides a Lenton". And he did, too, on his roadtraining rides which apparently had sufficient pub stops en route to qualify him as a duffer and thus ideal for a Lenton Sports. By the way, Raleigh flew Reg to Lagos, Nigeria, for the 1957 Independence Day celebrations where, in this most cycle mad of all African countries, he led a procession of Raleighs riding, a Super Lenton! Raleigh even sold Lentons in Nigeria. If you want to meet true Raleigh enthusiasts, go to Nigeria not England.

One of the reasons I suspect the RRA is distained now and then was that it was sold as a complete cycle, cost a packet (like 40 pound), subject to Clement Atley's confiscatory purchase tax (like 33 per cent on a complete bike!) and thus associated with poseurs, rich boys, demob windfall spenders or, as you prefer, "old fogeys". The snob element in certain elements of British cycling is amazing really and I suspect the RRA was a symbol of everything certain snobby club riders loathed if not envied. There was, in fact, a long waiting list for the RRA and one of the reasons the improved Clubman was introduced in 1950. The number of old fogeys riding awheel in the UK was apparently quite large!

Anyway, I've talked myself into making my '48 RRA and '58 RRA Moderne my designed cycles du weekend and can but hope to encounter someone riding a '48 Bianchi or '58 Helyett so we can go mano a mano.

Peter Kohler
Washington DC USA