[CR]Raleigh Pro Color

(Example: Framebuilding:Tubing:Falck)

Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:40:52 -0500
From: <earle.young@tds.net>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Sensitivity: Normal
Subject: [CR]Raleigh Pro Color

One of the troubles here seems to be that the catalog printers f****d up. For several years in the '70s, there were blue with silver bands or brown (mink) with silver bands, but also silver with black bands. In '74, all three color schemes were available, and listed in the catalog in a way that made it seem like the blue was called Blue Mink -- "Blue Mink/silver or Silver/Black" The later catalog perpetuated the weirdness, because the Mink/silver color was dropped, a color patch added, but the copy not changed. Am I the only one on the list who worked in Raleigh dealers big enough to have had all the color combinations on the sales floor? Catalogs can be and sometimes are WRONG! That Raleigh sold so few Mink/silver Pro Mk IV's that almost nobody has one does not turn Blue into Blue Mink, except in the minds of people who read catalogs instead of riding bikes. Sorry to rant, but I had this discussion in 1977 at Clay Grubic's Tow Path Cycle in Georgetown with at least one senior Raleigh exec, a couple of people who had worked in the shop through the entire Pro Mk. IV production run, and a woman who owned a '74 Mink/Silver Mk. IV. I was told of my error in calling the color of a blue and silver Pro Mk IV "Blue Mink" in vociferous enough terms that the lesson stuck. Earle Young Madison, Wisconsin, USA