I suspect one of the reasons for the RRA, Gran Sport and the Competition (pre 1978) having French components has as much to do with availibility of
components as with the selling price of the bikes. I've surmised here before and haven't been told otherwise that Raleigh in the early to mid 1970s, if not through the decade, must have been Campagnolo's biggest volume costumer, and there must have been times during the bike boom when it was difficult to keep up.
Raleigh was also unique among the volume manufacturers for producing so many full Reynolds 531 machines (main tubes, rear stays and forks): Team Pro, Professional, International, RRA, Competition, Gran Sport and the Super Tourer whereas Peugeot had but one model (PX-10 and its myriad variants) in this category.
We here tend to think of Raleigh being a big mass producer of indifferent mass market mediocrity, but truth to tell they simply produced more qualit y lightweights than all of their competition during the 1970s. At the peak , they produced 10,000 Internationals in a year (I believe 1973). Worksop,
Nottinghamshire, was the true epicentre of the CR period Bike Boom if you're counting bikes.
Peter Kohler Washington DC USA
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