Welcome to the First Post...

The basic idea here is to chronicle the restoration of a fine, albeit once mistreated English Roadster... and my subsequent travels thereupon. Thus begins the first post. Sir Walter is a well made Deluxe Model 1 (DL-1). Actually this is a rather late specimen of this particular model made in 1967. Despite its relatively young age of 42, Sir Walter is a genuine living fossil... Just one look at the rod brakes and sturdy high tensile frame and you get the idea that you are looking at an example of the finest technology the Edwardian Age had to offer. Well, you are. The first such models started rolling out of Raleigh's Nottingham works prior to the Great War of 1914. The DL-1 remained on the market virtually unchanged until the early 1980's. Most English models feature a full chain case... something Sir Walter may yet sport at some point, if I can find one that doesn't cost as much as I have spent on the rest of the bike. But this model, delivered for export to the U.S., features a Chain guard, which actually lets you look at the very pretty steel chainring featuring the trademark Raleigh Heron.

The Brits exported these throughout the Empire. So they were copied by manufacturers all over the third world, like Eastman in India. To this day, virtually identical bikes still provide basic transportation for people living in many corners of the globe, Asia, Africa, South America and even still in Europe. In China, the famed Flying Pigeon, which at one point was ridden by most of Chairman Mao's subjects, is pretty much a bolt-by-bolt copy of this bike. Raleigh of Denmark still makes this model as well, complete with giant 28" rims and tyres, although the rod brakes have been replaced with more modern hub brakes.




Here is Sir Walter on recent evening commute home down the National Mall in Washington DC. The well-lighted Capitol building is surely full of earnest lawmakers busy fixing healthcare or global climate change, but we will endeavor to stay away from politics here and keep on the topic of old English bikes. Hope you all enjoy and come back often to look for updates... maybe even a new restoration or two!