Flutterby™! : Raleigh museum 2014-03-11 18:17:28.079208+00

Raleigh museum

2014-03-11 18:17:28.079208+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments

When I was a kid, my dad had a coworker who'd occasionally show up at our house on his bicycle. Our house was a good distance away from my dad's work (Pittsfield, MA) and wherever he lived, so to a young person who thought that bicycling 10 miles round trip to "town" (East Chatham, NY) was a big deal, Bob was inspirational. He rode a Raleigh.

And then Huffy bought Raleigh and Raleigy became Ruffeigh and... well...

Tara brought this to my attention: University of Nottingham set to launch online archive for famous Raleigh factory, and it brought back memories of Bob picking his way on those skinny tires down that dirt road that led to our house.

In Huffy's defense I've found that the Huffy's that I get donated to the bike co-op I manage to be really durable bicycles for what they are, a cheap department store bike.

Yeah, I suspect that modern Huffy is actually a step above the generic department store bike, because they are a bit conscious of their brand name. They're the generic department store bike with enough value in their brand that they're also the one you remember from when you were a kid.

Probably similarly placed to Schwinn. Come to think of it, both of those brands would be interesting to watch over time, because I think both of them have more value today than they did two decades ago.

I worked for Huffy for a couple of years (15 years ago) assembling and repairing bikes in local department stores. The quality of the bikes wasn't bad, especially for the money. They did have a bewildering array of different models, often without interchangable parts.