Raleigh: Past and Presence of an Iconic Bicycle Brand (Cycling Resources)
This is an enormous work, encompassing 368 pages, covering the entire history of the iconic British bicycle brand in no fewer than 46 chapters, from the birth of (company founder) Frank Bowden in 1848 to 2011. In many ways, this is the story of our island race writ (very) large--its growth to imperial glory and sad retreat as bigger and clumsier players strode onto the world stage. At some time or another in the century of manufacturing from 1880 to 1980, Raleigh had a toe-hold just about everywhere. Like the big British car and motorcycle manufacturers, Raleigh seems to have developed a rather complacent attitude after so many decades at the top of its game, and when younger, sharper operators arrived, it just crumbled. According to Marvin Cresswell, who worked for Raleigh's marketing department for thirty years, the declining years proved to be a frustrating period: 'The marketers, who had done so much to establish the brand image of Raleigh, were succeeded in the 1960s and 1970s by complacency, lack of imagination and in many cases, ineptitude.' The 46 chapters in this huge work are mostly laid out chronologically, thank goodness, but there are a few fascinating asides, such as motorised bicycles, and the last chapter, The Art and Image of Raleigh. This covers the history of Raleigh advertising, which reads as something of a metaphor for the rise and fall for Raleigh itself. Raleigh is a fascinating work by a master on the subject. --A to B Magazine, England, No. 87, Dec. 2011