Raleigh Twenty

The Raleigh Twenty, also sold as the Shopper, was a small-wheeled bicycle that Raleigh built from 1968 until the early 1980s, in both fixed and folding versions. It was introduced as a companion to the RSW 16, and it proved the more successful of the two because its larger 20 inch wheels rode more smoothly and had less rolling resistance. A folding version called the Stowaway, borrowing an old Moulton name, followed in 1971. After the RSW 16 was dropped in 1974 the Twenty became Raleigh's main small-wheeled bicycle, and in 1975 some 140,000 were made in the UK alone, which made it the company's biggest seller in 1977. Most were sold as single speed with a coaster brake or fitted with a Sturmey-Archer three-speed hub. Raleigh also built a smaller Eighteen, a larger Twenty Two and a chopper-seated Commando from the same basic design, and sold the Twenty under names such as Triumph, Sun, Hercules, New Hudson and BSA. It was also manufactured in New Zealand under local content rules. Production ended in 1984.