Video:: Raleigh at Interbike 2008
Tuesday October 7th, 2008 at 9:24 AM
Posted by: adam
Brian goes over some new bling items and one offs from Raleigh. The Team road bike, an 853 steal niner bike with lots of bling bling! Cycle Cross and Single Speed…
Filmed by: Theo Dilworth | All Out Productions | www.alloutprodux.com
Edited by: Keith Wells
Tags: Raleigh
October 7th, 2008 at 10:58 am
First off, one of my favorite bikes is my XX1X so dont take any of this personally.
Its 853 steel not steal, though it may be, but i havent seen what msrp will be.
There are maybe 10 people that still think “bling” or “bling bling” is anywhere near a cool
thing to say about a part on a bike.
The team bike looks very fast, the white road bike at the end was really nice too.
The XX1X pro has me baffled.
Raleigh must have a deal with rockshox because though the reba is passable for recreation,
they really should have stuck a fox fork on there and skimped a little on the brakes instead.
The mohave 29 deserves better then a Dart fork in my opinion.
Should have put Reba Race on the xx1x pro, Reba on the xx1x+G, and then the Tora on the Mojave 29.
Thats a would have been a decent lineup.
I think Raleigh should have stuck with the single logo on the downtube like my XX1X but maybe even bigger.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Well, in response to Dan, I would say this: Whatever you may think of the term “bling”, it represents an idea that isn’t going away culturally. In much the same way as the word “cool” is used, and for like what? A century now? Whatever dude!
The “white road bike at the end..” is a cyclo-cross rig, not really a road bike.
The XXIX Pro with a Fox? Could have been nice, but what you may not have noticed is that the Rock Shox Reba is the new design, lighter weight than a Fox, and has the Maxle Light thru axle which Fox doesn’t have. (Fox is doing a 15mm thru axle, but only for 26″ers in ‘09) The new Reba is definitely NOT a recreational fork.
As for spec on the rest of the line up, sure: That easily could have been done, but that would have totally screwed up the price points Raleigh was trying to hit. For instance, putting a Tora on the Mojave would have pushed the MSRP waaay over a grand, and Raleigh wanted a 29″er under a grand, so where else would you be willing to compromise to get that Tora on there. You would have to downspec the rest of the bike significantly. Willing to do that to your dealer network? To the riding public? Just for a Tora?
Yes…it is that tight when you are spec’ing product.
It ain’t easy being a product manager these days!
So I for one can see exactly why it is spec’ed te way it is and I feel the line up is a strong one, but of course, opinions vary as the say…….