When a modern company sets out to build a bicycle, what it really builds is the frame (if that.) It buys sets of tubing from a tubing company, cuts and welds them together into a frame, paints it and installs parts from different specialized parts companies. They continued to be built in Nottingham until the mid-1970's, when the glamour of the 10-speed fad pushed them out of favor with the rising baby-boom generation. Raleigh 3-speed bicycles were introduced around the turn of the century, and kept improving in technology over the years, reaching a peak in quality probably in the mid-to-late 1950s. The fact that Raleigh 3-speeds are made of steel shouldn't fool you into thinking that these bikes were cheap or inferior in any way.they were not.they were the finest utility bicycles money could buy. These days, this seems laughable.but if you look at an older Dunlop steel rim, you'll find a very respectable, well-made product. The mystique of steel caused the British cycle industry to be slow to adopt newfangled materials such as aluminum, and many British cyclists believed, even well into the 1960's, that steel rims, for instance, were superior to aluminum ones. Raleigh originally introduced the slogan "The All Steel Bicycle" to differentiate Raleighs from competitors who used cast iron for some critical parts, a heavier and cruder technology. Britain's rise to an industrial superpower on the crest of the Industrial Revolution was based, as much as anything else, on the steel industry and the new technologies it made possible: steel ships, steel bridges, steel buildings.and steel bicycles.
Modern steel rims, cranks, etc are of low quality, because they are aimed at the cheapest possible price point.įrom the mid 19th century well into the 20th, the word "steel" was magic in Britain. Contemporary bicycles with steel rims, or cranks, or handlebars, or brakes are cutting corners and saving a little bit of money, for a low-end bicycle. Contemporary bicycles have many parts made of aluminum (or "aluminium," if you prefer) for lightness, strength and corrosion resistance.