Raleigh. Do they still exist?
This week one of M’s colleagues from the US who is visiting London, wanted some help in purchasing a bike. So we met and he told me that he was after a Raleigh bike with internal (hub) gears and drum brakes(!). Initially I thought he meant a used/second-hand Raleigh bike. But no, he said he wanted a new Raleigh bike. For a moment I thought “they don’t exist any more, do they?”. Then I remembered reading somewhere that another company had bought the rights to use the brand name. I though that I might be able to find a handful of bikes or so, but not a great deal of choice. So, I explained to him that drum brakes are not being used on bicycles any more and that hydraulic disc brakes are much better and promised that I would investigate and let him know.
Googling “raleigh bikes” returned raleigh.co.uk. Looking through the bikes I found an aluminium hybrid/city bike with 8 hub gears and hydraulic disc brakes for £850. Actually, £550 can get you one with an automatic 2-gear hub; SRAM calls it Automoatix. Apparently you start in low gear and when you reach around 15 km/h it shifts into high gear automatically. How cool is that?
And then I realised that I wouldn’t mind having a bike with automatic gears. If that’s the case, the N+1 is not good enough. I am more like a N+X man. Conclusion: I need a bike garage. Oh, and Raleigh still exist.