Most of us tend to think of Holland or Germany when considering European made bikes these days.
There are flourishing specialist bike makers all over Europe of course including Brompton here in the U.K. but I remember Raleigh when it was a dominant bike maker with other brands like Triumph under its wing.
Raleigh still exists, they don’t make bikes in the UK any more but they do have some really nice eBikes including a couple of very nice Bosch powered Stepthroughs featuring Bosch mid drive systems, Captus & Motus sit nicely at the top of the Raleigh range and dovetailed neatly under the offerings from their illustrious eBike relations – Haibike who don’t market a Stepthrough in the U.K.
I have no idea where the Raleighs or the Haibikes are made as so much bike manufacturing is carried out the Far East these days.
I was in conversation with a rep for a very expensive range of German eBikes at the NEC Cycle Show and he told me that leadtimes had gone out of the window for their product because a container ship was delayed on the way from the Far East and they had no front forks
There is an interesting reference to this in the Tom Hanks film The Kings Hologram where reference to both Schwann & Raleigh is made – exactly the kind of thing that Donald Trump would use an example of where Western economies have thrown away their Crown Jewels and where Jeremy Corbyn should be pointing if he wasn’t so scared of not being seen to support the ‘International Labour Movement’.
Only a few people benefit when this type of thing occurs and I hate the Green Party for their inability to grasp this basic fact – self sufficiency is great for the planet.
When globalisation occurs it is almost always all about the race to the bottom, where can we make the greatest savings, where can we cut costs, which option enables the rich and the powerful to trouser the most money.
Hereford Electric Bikes 