Raleigh Gran Sport

The Raleigh Gran Sport was a ten-speed road bicycle in the range of Raleigh of Nottingham, remembered on Sheldon Brown's Retro Raleighs archive as the bike its author dreamed of in high school in the class of 1962, a notch above his Elswick Tour Anglais. He recalls it as the first bicycle he ever saw with Campagnolo derailleurs, and also the first with Presta valves and the state-of-the-art Dunlop Special Lightweight rims and HPRR tyres, and says that although it was not made of name brand tubing it was a very fine machine in its day. The archive shows how it appeared in the 1962 catalogue and again in the 1976 catalogue, and notes that a model listed in the 1970 catalogue was probably never actually produced. The 1970 Raleigh catalogue for the United States describes a Gran Sport with Reynolds 531 tubing, a Zeus alloy crank-set, a Huret Luxe 10-speed gear, quick release hubs and a Brooks Pro saddle, in chrome with coffee and bronze green trim or with black and gold trim.