Raleigh 1952 Advertisement — Ride a Raleigh, the Sports Tourist with Sturmey-Archer Gears

Ride a Raleigh

“Britain’s Foremost Bicycle”

Raleigh Sports Tourist with Sturmey-Archer 3-speed gears

Dynohub extra.

You’ll be amazed at the effortless pedalling and steering . . . at the joy of riding a “featherlike” bike — just as light as it is strong!

Check these exciting Raleigh features:

★ Famous Sturmey-Archer 3-Speed Gears — the original and best — act as your Raleigh’s transmission.

★ Famous Raleigh 2-Wheel Safety Brakes — they eliminate the chain as a braking agent; assure quick, smooth stops at any speed, in any terrain.

★ Famous Raleigh Dynohub Car Type Lighting — self-generated without loss of energy through friction.

No need to worry about service for your Raleigh – you get it anywhere.

DAYE CYCLE SHOP
421 East Third St. at Wayne Ave.
FU 9397

[A tall single-column advertisement. The words Ride a and Raleigh run across the head, Raleigh reversed white out of a solid black pennant that tapers to a point at the left, with a second and paler gray pennant set beneath it pointing the other way. The machine is a halftone photograph rather than a drawing, a gents’ Sports Tourist shot in three-quarter view from the front right and dropped onto the gray pennant: sprung saddle, headlamp at the fork crown, chainguard, mudguards and upright bars. The three starred features are set in bold with their explanations following in light type, and the dealer’s name and telephone number are set in heavy capitals under a rule at the foot.]

[One advertisement cropped out of page 15 of The Press of Oakwood, Ohio for Thursday 16 October 1952. It is the archive’s first Raleigh document from the American trade, and it sits two years before the Rudge sheet at 70892 and four before the Schwinn clearance at 70888.

The copy was written in Nottingham and not in Ohio. It spells pedalling with two l’s in an American paper, it calls the machine featherlike and Britain’s Foremost Bicycle, and it hands the dealer three starred claims to make on the manufacturer’s behalf. Daye Cycle Shop of East Third Street supplies only its name, its address and its telephone number at the foot.

The three claims are the Raleigh Industries product line stated as selling points, and all three are components rather than the bicycle: Sturmey-Archer 3-speed gears, described as the original and best and as the machine’s transmission; Raleigh 2-wheel safety brakes; and Dynohub car type lighting, self-generated without loss of energy through friction.

⚠ The brake claim is the sharpest thing on the sheet and it is aimed squarely at American practice. Raleigh 2-Wheel Safety Brakes, it says, eliminate the chain as a braking agent. That is an argument against the coaster brake, which brakes through the chain and was the American standard fitting, and it can be read directly against document 70888, where a Washington dealer four years later lists Schwinn middleweights with coaster brakes and reserves front and rear hand brakes for the lightweights. The same division is being sold here as a safety feature rather than a category.

The model is named as the Raleigh Sports Tourist and the Dynohub is an extra, which is what the Rudge sheet at 70892 also says two years later.

The whole newspaper page is never the document here. The advertisement was cropped from the Library of Congress IIIF master at native resolution and the page identifier is kept in the provenance pair. The body text was set from the Library of Congress machine text and then read against the image at native resolution, which is why this record is marked as machine text checked by eye rather than as transcription.]