frpax

OK, let's say I have a mid '80s Raleigh USA that was made in Taiwan (used to have one), what do I have?

A. British bike (Raleigh)
B. American bike (Raleigh bike made for US market)
or C. Taiwanese bike (where is was actually made)

cb400bill

Not A.

My Raleigh USA was made in Seattle WA, so I guess you have a Taiwanese bike.

auchencrow

Who reaped the profits from it?
Companies often build manufacturing plants here or abroad to take advantage of cheap labor, but that does not make it an indigenous product.

frpax

Well, just generally speaking...

If a brand name has bikes out sourced from another country, to me, the identity of the bike is somewhat confusing.

Wildwood 

What would you have?
If bikes have a nationality (questionable), yours would be a multi-national (as are most bikes). Or a mongrel bike.

noglider 

You can't sum up a bike with a single word.

In your case, it might have been designed by Americans, through collective refinement from all over the world, built by Taiwanese, with lots of Japanese components on it.

Doohickie

In my case,

D. The Dumpster Queen!

Doohickie

Another correct answer would be:

A b@st@rd Huffy.

randyjawa 

The Raleigh would be from Taiwan. Not England or the USA. What would it be? A Taiwanese Raleigh. If it were built in England, it would be an English Raleigh and so on... Unless, of course, your Asian built Raleigh married an American built Raleigh, they yours would become American with the proper paper work:-)

I joke about this because many my really high end vintage Canadian made road bicycles were built by Italian craftsmen, who immigrated to Canada to build bikes. Does that make my Marinoni, or Miele, or CCM Tour du Canada, Italian or Canadian? To me, they are all Canadian. But that is just me.

bbattle

Single word for what he has: bicycle.

I am so tired of these "nationality" threads.

RobbieTunes

Probably a Raleigh Rapide

T-Mar

The difference being that something like the Marinoni was probably actually built in Canada by someone with Canadian citizenship. That gives it the right to be called Canadian. Not all CCM, Marinoni and Miele were Canadian. Legally, it all comes down to whether there was enough Canadian content at the time of manufacture for the Canadian government to permit a Made in Canada sticker.

Doohickie

What nationality car is a Hyundai Sonata? Probably not what you expect. Hint.

Why would you say that? From '83 to '86, most of the Raleigh USA lineup (especially the lower end) was made in Taiwan.

noglider 

Me, too. I think the quest is to learn the "essential personality" by assigning a nationality to these goods. It's not possible. It's futile. It's rather meaningless, too.

ozneddy

To me (and its only my opinion) a "Classic and Vintage" bike would have to be made in the country of origin of its name , later models made oversea,s for reasons of profitabilty do not IMO constitute a bad product it just reduces desirability of that product, ie; would you buy a Crapistani made R0//z R0yce ?

frpax

Sorry if I offended...

I did not mean to beat a dead horse. I was just wondering, and wanted opinions.

Shp4man

I read somewhere that most mass-produced bikes come from 3 huge Chinese factories these days.

noglider 

That wouldn't be hard to believe.

norskagent

Nationality matters more for some makes and models I think. If I am assessing a pdg paramount one of the first things I would want to know is if its waterford or asian, same with bianchi / italy or asian, etc.

cudak888 

It was made in Taiwan.

It's Taiwanese.

It rides like an Asian-built frameset?

It's Taiwanese.

It was developed by an American firm for a Taiwanese subcontractor to build.

It's Taiwanese.

Japan


Japan


Taiwan


Not a single one of the Raleigh USA machines were duplicated in Huffy's lineup. Only the brains behind them were related. Somehow, they put out a good product.

-Kurt

noglider 

Yeah, those 1980's Taiwan-made Huffy-contracted Raleighs were good bikes. I would call them "good bikes."

rhm

I think it's not so much a question of where, as when. There was a time when Raleighs came out of a factory in Nottingham, and the only thing going into that factory was raw material. In those days, they were making English bicycles, which were pretty different from, for example, American bicycles (so much so that they were widely imitated even, for example, in America). In later decades the national character of bicycles --especially derailleur equipped bicycles-- disappeared. I doubt OP's bike has any characteristic of an "English" bicycle; it has the character of a mid-80's bike, and that's about it.

cudak888 

The '84 Competition would be the first machine I'd pull out of the stables for a race. Stiff, lively, corners like a flea, and the Suntour Cyclone 7000 I mounted to it has the best indexing shifters I've ever used (mainly as I like the overshift feature).

-Kurt

noglider 

Good point, rhm.

Look at the US market of bikes from the Japanese makers of the 70's and 80's. They were 70's and 80's bikes designed for the US market. They copied and refined and improved on the European designs. They didn't really add a Japanese slant to the products. Japan is heavily into bike commuting, and there isn't a lot of influence from that into the recreational and sport bikes. That's not what the US market demanded at the time.