Raleigh Record

The Raleigh Record was the entry-level drop-handlebar road bicycle in the range made by Raleigh of Nottingham. Sheldon Brown's Retro Raleighs archive says that for most of the 1960s and the bike boom of the 1970s the Record was the bottom of Raleigh's drop-bar line, built on essentially the same frame as the Sports three-speed and made almost entirely of steel except for the brakes. It competed with the Schwinn Varsity and later with many low-end French models. The BikeBiz history of Raleigh adds that between 1970 and 1972, when United States demand for lightweight ten-speeds rose forty-fold, the Record and the Grand Prix, both based on Carlton designs, sold in very large numbers and were made in Nottingham, at Worksop by Carlton, by Gazelle in the Netherlands and by Raleigh Ireland. The 1968 United States price list gives the DL 130 Record a 2030 tubing frame and Simplex ten-speed gears at 75 dollars, and Sheldon Brown notes that the Record Limited of 1977 brought cotterless cranks and Sun Tour derailleurs.