Raleigh wasn’t just a bike company — for much of the 20th century, it was the bicycle industry.
This video traces the full story of Raleigh Bicycles, from its origins in an 1880s Nottingham workshop to becoming the largest bicycle manufacturer in the world, and then through the slow, less dramatic decline that turned a factory giant into a travelling brand name.
This isn’t a story about a single bankruptcy or one bad decision.
It’s about scale, industrial change, and how a company can lose its place while keeping its name.
We explore:
How Raleigh began on Raleigh Street in Nottingham in 1885
Frank Bowden’s transformation of a workshop into a global industrial powerhouse
Why Raleigh dominated bicycle production between the wars
The impact of Tube Investments and the TI-Raleigh era
The mass-market icons everyone remembers — the Raleigh Chopper, Raleigh Twenty, and Grifter
How imported bikes and changing consumer tastes reshaped the UK market
Why Nottingham manufacturing ended in the early 2000s
And how Raleigh survived by becoming a brand rather than a place
By the time Raleigh stopped making most of its bikes in Nottingham, the badge had become more valuable than the factory. Today, Raleigh still exists — inside global cycling groups, selling commuter bikes, leisure bikes, and modern e-bikes — even though the industrial world that created it is gone.
This is a business history, an industrial history, and a reminder that famous names don’t usually disappear overnight. They fade, adapt, and sometimes outlive the thing that made them famous.