well its been a while in the making but i think it was worth it....
after building the team rp for personal indulgence and then my reynolds rep as a brainwave,
i decided it was time to expand the collection with a freestyle orientated bike.
raleigh basically did the styler as a reaction to the freestyle fashion yet they did a half attempt in my eyes.
therefore the brief for this build was to create something that was entirely freestyle, refected the fashion of that era of bmx yet was essentially a raleigh.
ive always loved the haro sport, and the styler i was using as a abse was ashade of turqouise, this coupled with the mad pinks and greens of the freestyle era mean the bike had to be haro sport turquoise.
after this i got a small decal that said 'raleigh burner styler series'
this was a real find, it legitimated my styler as a burner and was a great finishing touch. it was an official stamp. it came in team blue font so i felt i had to incorporate this into the build. also i was fortunate to inherit a set of immaculate black raleigh mags from a friend which decided the components colour, white wall tires were a freestyle must so black and white became a feature,
- on the tange grips, the freestyle diacompes, the chequer valve caps and then on the handler kashimax seat.
the freestyle parts i included after discussions with the guys on rad were...
- a kashimax handler, a brand raleigh used but a freestyle variant, the font on the side matches well and i used white to tie in the padset tho i do have a spare black one, but its font is gold
- genuine raleigh frame standers in chrome from ginnys, i used the same style pedals to match in
- dia compe FreeStyle brake set, a brand used by raleigh but a freestyle specific brakeset
- raleigh double top tube freestlye bars
- freestyle tread tyre witha tread pattern that matches the ones found on the wildcat and vektar
- a potts mod stem, in the shape of a suntour stem with a hollow bolt, custom pads to allow for this
- old skool style front pegs, as fitted to this era bike
the biggest stumbling blocks were the decals and the pads, as i believe this is the first custom styler resto ( bar the yellow one which uses original decals).
jon bmx man and steve esem design were fantastic redrawing all the artwork and reproducing these indiviual items
the good news is this needs done only once and now they are avaialble to anyone via their sites!!
hope u enjoy the pics, comments good or bad welcome, and thanks to everyone who had an input..
Dave.
ps click on photos for true size...
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