Some Raleigh BMX history

[FuNMoNsTeR]

Not sure where to post this... I thought it might be interesting to some Rad members   Its Raleighs take on their entry into the world of BMX 

First response to BMX

The next follow-up to the Chopper was the Grifter, launched three years later, in June 1976. It resembled a BMX bike but with mudguards and a three-speed hub.

The Grifter was originally developed not primarily as a Chopper replacement but to compete with BMX. However, the limited roadster-oriented technology at Nottingham meant that every joint of the Grifter’s frame would have to be brazed. Therefore, it could never compete with the welded frames being introduced in the US. However, as Chopper sales continued to slide, the Grifter was presented as the natural successor. It sold well.


BMX

Raleigh was very late into BMX. The board was reluctant to introduce single-speed stripped down junior machines, as there was less profit in each compared with the Grifter, especially for Sturmey-Archer. They hoped BMX would be a passing fad. It was not and the company initially missed a big opportunity. There were consequently some high level sackings. The high street auto accessories and cycle chain store Halfords was meanwhile heavily and successfully promoting BMX. This followed a major initiative by their cycle marketing manager David Duffield (who had launched the Moulton and had later worked for Raleigh). Halfords, Raleigh’s biggest customer, had been involved in building the first BMX track in the UK and helping local authorities around the country set up their own tracks. As he could not source BMX bikes from Raleigh, he instead started importing from the USA.

Therefore, soon after the Bomber launch, Yvonne Rix was sent on a research trip to the USA. She came back with the Burner range, which was launched in 1982 and rapidly sold over a million units. This had a major impact on Raleigh’s overall UK sales: in 1983, they were up 57% on 1981. The Bomber and Burner also temporarily helped arrest Raleigh’s declining market share. In 1980, this had slipped to 31% but by 1982, Raleigh had half the UK market. Indeed, for the period covered by this paper, 1983 was Raleigh’s best year for sales in the UK, with almost a million units sold.

[RATTY]

Band wagon, jump, come to mind

Nice piece though Andy

[FuNMoNsTeR]

Thanks m8    I added the earlier history too, helps tie it all together... 

[Trev]

Band wagon, jump, come to mind

just what i thought.


it's a shame that after missing the first boat, raleigh opted not to go the whole hog and go for the top end of the bmx market. i mean in 1985 they had signed the hottest name in uk bmx, andy ruffell. with him on board and freestyle starting to take shape, they could have been a big player in high end bikes. i guess they chose quantity over quality.

[RATTY]

What pissed me off Trev, they was big enough to do both high end bikes and cheaper stuff. How much would it have cost them to copy the geometry of a goose or redline, instead of the monstrosity that was the burner.

[Trev]

yeah, they could definitely have competed with the top companies. like i said, andy ruffell was the biggest name in bmx over here and they should have milked it by having a top end bike. 

over here, skyway had it completely sussed. they got on board craig campbell & neil ruffell. then got carlo on too. they had three out of the top five riders in the country on board. the other two being dave young and pepi winder (pepi also signed for skyway a couple of years later).  before that they also had people like bill stupps and paul hudson.  they brought out the street beat and got the best riders riding them. a great marketing technique.

did the aero pro and raleigh andy ruffell only sell as well as they did because andy ruffell was riding them? definitely.  they should have built on that.

[FuNMoNsTeR]

It was more a case of Money.... They poured all their cash into MTB development In 1985.... Blame Yvonne Rix.... the same lady that brought the Burner back from the states.... she also sold Raleigh on the idea of MTBs being the way forward in 85  

Mountain bikes

When Yvonne Rix visited the USA and the Far East in 1981, she formed the view that mountain bikes would eventually come down from the hills and onto the streets. The reaction from the Raleigh board was, who needs mountain bikes in England where there are few mountains? Yvonne Rix’s response was that neither do you need a 4x4 to drive in London, but you see plenty of Range Rovers in Chelsea. Not a woman to be easily dissuaded, she kept up the pressure for several years. Yet there was still very little interest in mountain biking in the UK: a review of the UK cycling scene in the International Cycling Guide 1983 made no mention of it.

Eventually, Yvonne Rix persuaded the Raleigh board that a move into mountain bike production made sense. In spring 1985, Raleigh launched Maverick, its first range of MTBs. offered in 5, 15 and 18-speed versions, it was built using traditional Raleigh roadster-style brazing. However, initial sales were disappointing. The MTB market in the UK remained relatively small, with few domestic players and no meaningful presence yet from American or Taiwanese companies.

[RATTY]

Trev, that was the other thing that annoyed the fook outta me, Skyway factory riders rode production bikes, so kids could ride the same machines as the big guns. Andy never rode a poxy night burner, or a mag burner, no his frames were high end frames imported from ?japan?

[Trev]

i suppose in raleigh's defence, they were a bike company rather than a bmx company. maybe on other forums, mountain bikers are thinking they should have ploughed more money into the mtb rather than wasting it on bmx. i don't know how successful raleigh bikes were in other areas during the first bmx boom.

in all honesty, it would appear she got it right with the mtb's.  the average kid who wanted a bmx in 83 wanted a mountain bike in 86. you've got to realise that raleigh are a bike company that has to keep up with the latest trends of bikes. it would not have been good business to stick with bmx in the late 80's when most kids had passed that fad.  remember, us as bmxers make up a very small percentage of cyclists.

[Trev]

Trev, that was the other thing that annoyed the fook outta me, Skyway factory riders rode production bikes, so kids could ride the same machines as the big guns. Andy never rode a poxy night burner, or a mag burner, no his frames were high end frames imported from ?japan?

i think they flooded the market with too many different burner versions. which like you said were never ridden by their riders.

all skyway riders rode a street beat which was one of the most popular frames out back then. they also rode street stylers as their second bike (normally rode a beat with a coaster for flat and a styler with a freewheel for ramps).  the only skyway bike they didn't ride was the cheap street scene version which subseqently hardly anyone bought.

it's true, kids want to ride the same bikes as their heroes. so ratty, when you getting a Proper...

[FuNMoNsTeR]

Trev, that was the other thing that annoyed the fook outta me, Skyway factory riders rode production bikes, so kids could ride the same machines as the big guns. Andy never rode a poxy night burner, or a mag burner, no his frames were high end frames imported from ?japan?

Ruff did get a fat paycheck and Star treatment.... All Aero pros were imported from Japan as they were made by Tange  
 Like Trev says... Raleigh are a 'family' bicyle company and they folloe the market trend wherever the seam of cash is thickest.

Here is the nail in the coffin for BMX as far as Raleigh is concerned:

The mountain bike boom

Alan Finden-Crofts believed that timing was everything and no sooner had Derby acquired Raleigh than mountain biking in the UK finally took off. Raleigh’s UK sales increased for the next four years running and by 1990 were 31% on 1986. Eventually, more than 3m Raleigh MTBs were sold. The move to profitability surprised many and confounded the widely held view that Derby was only interested in asset stripping.

Initially dubbed ‘Dad’s BMX’, mountain bikes had a much wider age profile than their smaller cousins: not 7 to 17 but more like 9 to 90. Eventually MTBs became the replacement conventional bicycle, the equivalent in the UK of the now virtually extinct sports light roadster. Nonetheless, the mountain bikes offered by Raleigh still had a product life cycle. After four very good years, most people who wanted a first generation Raleigh mountain bike, had bought one. Consequently, in 1991, Raleigh’s total UK sales dropped by 16%, a level at which they were to remain for five years.

[RATTY]

it's true, kids want to ride the same bikes as their heroes. so ratty, when you getting a Proper..

I think proper would pay me not to ride one Trev 

Do they do a race frame then?

[FuNMoNsTeR]

I bet you are quick these days m8     I will be watching your arse getting smaller at MK as i choke on your dust 

[Trev]

That would be the biggest problem with the Raleigh brand.  Because they are basically the jack of all trades and master of none.  I think it would have got to a point where people buying a bike then thought about going for a make that was concentrated on that certain area. a bmxer would have gone with haro, skyway, gt etc and MTBers would have gone with their equivilents.  In the same way as supermarkets like tesco for example, will have their own brand for almost everything in their store. But you would rather buy Heinz ketchup than Tesco's ketchup. You'd rather buy Lynx than Tesco's own brand deodrant. McVities jaffa cakes instead of their own brand.  Etc etc.

[FuNMoNsTeR]

Very True.... Raleigh did have a specialist division also. They produced the MTrax and Dynatech titanium bikes....  I am about to list a 1990 Dynatech MTB on eBay 

[Bob_Acid]

Raleigh USA did go with decent companys. At one point they had bill bastian making frames for them.

[theRuler]

interesting thread

imagine what bmx in the uk would have been like if those million burners had got, for example, mongoose motomag geometry . . . .

[highrisedrifter]

Great thread with some good points. I always thought that Raleigh had too many Burners in the range. Of course, at the heart of things, as mentioned above, are the executives who sit many steps removed from the world in which they allegedly hold sway.

Ruff's bike was not really marketed well. I seem to recall that they started to market it as an afterthough as they were seemingly starting to move away from BMX.

HRD

[RATTY]

interesting thread

imagine what bmx in the uk would have been like if those million burners had got, for example, mongoose motomag geometry . . . .

Thats exactly my point, how much research would it take to find out the best selling bmx, or the most desired Bmx, and used that bike as a guide to your product.

[Dingobmxer]

interesting thread

imagine what bmx in the uk would have been like if those million burners had got, for example, mongoose motomag geometry . . . .

Thats exactly my point, how much research would it take to find out the best selling bmx, or the most desired Bmx, and used that bike as a guide to your product.

especially as they gave the Bunneys GT team a few prototypes to ride before they were released 

  DINGO

[Trev]

Can I ask a question about geometry?
Did anyone really know anything about it bitd?  Was it something that helped you decide what bike you rode?
I know it didn't make the slightest bit of difference to me.  To me, my only reason for buying a Skyway was because Neil Ruffell rode one. No other reason.  Just like Bob Haro / Ron Wilkerson fans bought Haro's and Fiola fans bought GTs.

[RATTY]

Trev, maybe I was lucky with the company I kept back then, but I knew the Pl20 was a great race bike as soon as it was over here, we knew the kuwis were great but a bit on the small side, that the supergoose was a very stable bike, and that the torkers flexed like crazy. You only had to look at the burner and the height of the bottom bracket ment no thought was ever put into the design, it wouldnt suprise me if they had a jig laying about for a grifter and used that cos they couldnt be bothered to build a new one

[Trev]

So good you're still riding one now... 


The thing is when i got my first skyway, i didn't know any other riders who had decent freestyle bikes, so couldn't really try out any different frames. i couldn't really do any tricks either, so wouldn't have known what was good and what wasn't anyway. once i bought my first skyway, i got really used to that and stuck with them until i stopped riding.

[theRuler]

Can I ask a question about geometry?
Did anyone really know anything about it bitd?  Was it something that helped you decide what bike you rode?
I know it didn't make the slightest bit of difference to me.  To me, my only reason for buying a Skyway was because Neil Ruffell rode one. No other reason.  Just like Bob Haro / Ron Wilkerson fans bought Haro's and Fiola fans bought GTs.

we didn't really know about geometry persay
but we knew that a diamond back viper rode a million times better than a burner

[priv]

a very intersting thread,i had a team burner i bought it i liked the colour,i had mates who had quads,redlines,db's,rippers etc,we bought them 'cos we liked how they looked not 'cos so and so was sponsored by them,the riding we did was mucking about on the streets or riding to the nearest track,the only rider who took it seriously was nosnod who raced to a good standard.

to me a bmx was just a cool looking bike to fcuk about with my mates on


priv