Sunday, February 22, 2009

Raleigh Ladies Tourist bicycle

Raleigh is best known for their black "English Racer" bicycles, made the ever popular, Sturmey Archer 3 speed equipped, bicycle for over 80 years. To the casual looker, the Raleigh bicycle from the 1930s is no different than same model produced in the 1970s. A perfect example is the Raleigh Tourist.

Barring some minor details, the Tourist model known for it's larger wheel size (28" x 1 1/2") and rod -actuated brakes(rather than cables), remained unchanged for decades. It is a common mistake that people see these bikes as early Raleighs, even though Raleigh produced this model into the 1980s.

This particular Ladies model has a hub that is dated from 1978, and dating Raleighs this way is fairly accurate when the wheels are original to the bicycle. The 1977 catalog scan was borrowed from Retro Raleighs , an invaluable source of catalogs and general information about vintage Raleighs.



2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi, I've got one of these sitting in my apartment that I want to sell. Any thoughts on where I should sell it or how much I should sell it for? Bob

bikeville said...

It is a little hard to sell on ebay as Shipping is very high, unless you disassemble it. It is a very long bike. Usually when we ship them, it is over 2 boxes. Try to sell locally if possible. hard to give a value without seeing it's condition.